Almost from the beginning, Andrew Hill has been a driving force of avant-garde jazz. To this very day he's still at it, having won a best album award for Dusk in the year 2000 and multiple Best Jazz Composer awards recently. While Hill set the standard for all avant-garde jazz with the release of Point of Departure, Black Fire was his first masterpiece. He didn't create the genre but he has certainly almost carried it on his back. This album features what may be my favorite quartet as of yet: Andrew Hill, Richard Davis, Roy Haynes and Joe Henderson. Hill's style is hard to pinpoint. It's sort of a cross of Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk, varying from classy to erratic. Joe Henderson had just gotten out of the military when this was recorded. Black Fire definitely features some of his finest tenor saxophone work. On drums, Roy Haynes is, for lack of better description, the original Tony Williams. His versatility is awesome. From what I can tell, if a person wanted to record a slightly strange jazz album in the 60s, bearing in mind that they couldn't get Charles Mingus, Richard Davis was the next logical selection. Ron Carter would be after Davis and then somebody random if all else failed. Two of the seven songs are piano/drums/bass numbers: "Subterfuge" and "Tired Trade". "Subterfuge" is perhaps my favorite jazz trio song. Start to finish, "Pumpkin" to the avant-garde Latin feeling "Land of Nod", this is a classic.
–Rob
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