Andrew Hill - A Beautiful Day, Revisited (Palmetto)

Pianist and composer Andrew Hill was an iconoclast, a remarkable musician who wrote weird, complex, brilliantly melodic pieces and presented them to musicians who knew exactly how to flow in and outside of the tunes. For A Beautiful Day, recorded onstage and released in 2002, Hill augmented his whip-smart sextet (Nasheet Waits, drums; Greg Tardy and Marty Ehrlich, reeds; Scott Colley, bass; Ron Horton, trumpet) with an extra ten horns and turned them loose. Twenty-two years later, Palmetto boss Matt Balitsaris took another spin through the original tapes, and, buoyed by technology unavailable to him at the time, gave the record a facelift. Extending tracks, bringing clarity to live mixes, stretching it out to two disks, and generally just enjoying being able to do with the recordings what he wanted to do in the first place, Balitsaris makes an already marvelous record even more so. Rhythms shift from pocket to tornado, horn solos start straight but turn crooked, and harmonies provide a framework as much for swinging off of as climbing. Hill’s melodies shine through the controlled chaos, not so much because of their sturdiness, but because the leader knows how to write with adventure in mind. Showcasing sophisticated tunesmithery, expert arranging, and masterful performances, cuts like “J Di,” “New Pinnochio,” and both versions of the title track challenge us without being forbidding, extending a friendly claw while remaining uncompromised. Call it postbop or free jazz or whatever you like – just remember that A Beautiful Day, Revisited is, more than anything, Andrew Hill music.