Boosey & Hawkes Signs Jazz Master Andrew Hill

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Boosey & Hawkes is pleased to announce the addition of jazz legend Andrew Hill to its distinguished roster of composers. Hill holds a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Foundation of America (1997), is board advisor to the Jazz Composers Collective, and is one of the first to receive the Doris Duke Foundation award for jazz composers. In 2003 he was selected by an international committee to receive the JAZZPAR Award, the largest annual jazz award given to an active performer. He has also been named Jazz Composer of the Year four times by the Jazz Journalists Association, most recently in 2006.

The New York Times has hailed him as “one of the 1960's jazz heroes” for his internationally renowned Blue Note sessions (1963-1969) produced by Blue Note Records founder, the late Alfred Lion, who named Hill his “last great protg.”

Enigmatic and unorthodox, Hill's music defies categorization. It is immediately tuneful yet strikingly complex: angular melodies sprawl out over colorful chord clusters while the rhythm section eludes time with impeccable nuance and sophistication. President of the Jazz Journalists Association Howard Mandel refers to Hill as “an all-too-secret master,” whose innovation has broadened the scope of the jazz genre; he continues, “His compositions have great depth, in his own performances of them, and seem to have many mysteries for other interpreters to unravel and reveal.”

Since the 1960's Hill has demonstrated compositional prowess and a profound understanding of instrumentation. In 1969 he wrote a nonet for five brass instruments, including tuba and French horn, along with several woodwinds and a rhythm section (Passing Ships) which was recently performed at New York City's Merkin Hall. Were it not for the foresight of producer Michael Cuscuna, Passing Ships may never have been realized - the master tapes were packed away for over 30 years until rediscovered in 2003. Cuscuna says of Passing Ships, “Like only a handful of other jazz composers, Andrew Hill took the rules and tools that every musician is given and found his own solutions to musical situations, creating his own identity in the process.”

Says Hill, “I've been arranging music for decades. At the time I had a fever to write for as many different types of instrumentation as possible.” He describes this “fever” to realize his artistic vision as the foundation for the work he did in the 1990's with Sketches for string quartet (1991), American Nikkei Symphony (1992), Obunto for solo piano and string quartet (1995), and two documentary film scores, Exclusions and Awakenings: The Life of Maxine Greene (1998) and Off Track (1999). Regarding his newfound relationship with Boosey & Hawkes, Hill simply says, “It is a very great honor.”

With a legacy of over 40 recordings spanning just as many years, Hill's most recent releases prove that he “still creates music as if his best work is ahead of him” (NPR). Dusk (Palmetto 2000) was named Jazz Album of the Year by both Down Beat Magazine and JazzTimes. A Beautiful Day (Palmetto 2002) was selected by CDNow as one of the Ten Best Jazz Albums of 2002. AllAboutJazz.com calls The Day the World Stood Still (Palmetto 2003) “an essential document of [Hill's] continuing vitality and vision.” His most recent release, Time Lines (Blue Note 2006), which contains the piece For Emilio (commissioned by Chamber Music America as part of its Doris Duke Foundation initiative), was voted Best Jazz Album by Down Beat magazine in 2006. Bruce Lundvall, President & CEO of The Blue Note Label Group says “Andrew Hill is one of the most original artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, as both a pianist and a composer. He is one of the true geniuses on Blue Note.”

Says Boosey & Hawkes' General Manager Marc Ostrow, “Andrew Hill is one of the pre-eminent composers in jazz. As a long-time fan, I am pleased to be able to add his unique voice to our catalog.” Boosey & Hawkes will co-publish Hill's Jazz Fund Catalog, controlling the world-wide administration of about 80 works, as well as any new works Andrew writes in the next several years. This body of work encompasses compositions from the 1960's to the present, as recorded on labels such as Blue Note, Soul Note, Palmetto, and others. Boosey & Hawkes launched its jazz initiative in 2006 with the signing of pianist/composers Chick Corea and David Benoit, and a worldwide agency agreement for the historic Second Floor Music catalogue, which features some of the best-known compositions of the bop and post-bop eras. Boosey & Hawkes added its first ever jazz expert, Adina Williams, to its promotion staff last year and anticipates additional signings to its distinguished jazz roster later this year. For upcoming news and announcements please visit the B&H jazz page at www.boosey.com/jazz.

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