Compulsion (album) explained

Compulsion!!!!!
Type:studio
Artist:Andrew Hill
Cover:Compulsion.jpg
Released:End of February 1967[1]
Recorded:October 8, 1965
Studio:Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Genre:Free jazz
Length:41:04
Label:Blue Note
BST 84217
Producer:Alfred Lion
Prev Title:Pax
Prev Year:1965
Next Title:Change
Next Year:1966

Compulsion!!!!! is a studio album by American jazz pianist Andrew Hill. It was originally released in 1967 under the Blue Note Label as BST 84217. In its album review, Billboard wrote of Compulsion!!!!!, "The wild, yet disciplined piano of Andre Hill is the driving force behind this strange and moving record."[2] It was remastered by Rudy Van Gelder in 2006. Featured musicians include trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, tenor saxophonist John Gilmore, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Joe Chambers.

Background and album concept

Hill's intention was to "...construct an album expressing the legacy of the Negro tradition," and to use the piano more as a percussive instrument than a melodic one.[3] The second number, "Legacy", was dedicated to the Afro-American legacy, and is followed by "Premonition", which Hill described as "indicating not alone a look ahead, but rather a sufficiently revealing look backward, so that you can really begin to know what may come."[3] The album concludes with "Limbo", a 20-bar tune, a piece written to represent the state in which Hill considered the majority of Afro-Americans to be in at the time, not drawing on their heritage.[3]

Track listing

All compositions by Andrew Hill

  1. "Compulsion" – 14:15
  2. "Legacy" – 5:50
  3. "Premonition" – 10:32
  4. "Limbo" – 10:17

Personnel

Sources

Notes and References

  1. https://books.google.com/books?id=CykEAAAAMBAJ&dq=andrew+hill+Compulsion&pg=PA43 Billboard Mar 4, 1967
  2. https://books.google.com/books?id=CCkEAAAAMBAJ&dq=BST+84217&pg=PA53 Billboard, March 11, 1967, p. 52
  3. Original album liner notes, by Nat Hentoff