Time Lines
The Life and Music of Andrew Hill
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
Time Lines
Pre-order Now for £27.99
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
-
Michael J. West
Notwithstanding his significance for modern jazz, much about Hill’s life has been obscured by his exaggerations and outright lies. His fabulism has long frustrated attempts to piece together his background. Born in Chicago, he insisted for decades that he was a native of Haiti and consistently lied about his age. Some falsehoods—like his claim that he studied under Paul Hindemith—went undetected and persist even now.
Time Lines: The Life and Music of Andrew Hill provides as full and accurate an account of Hill’s life as possible, while also closely examining the music he created as a composer and performer. Featuring memories and insights from a long list of Hill’s collaborators, peers, associates, students, and protégés, as well as subject matter experts, eyewitnesses, and journalists, this is the definitive account of one of the most perplexing, elusive, and endlessly inventive figures in modern jazz.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
Critic reviews
It would be easy to listen to Andrew Hill’s excellent album, Black Fire, and next put on Point of Departure, having been made curious by Hill’s fascinating and idiosyncratic approach, also perhaps drawn to the promise of hearing performances by Eric Dolphy that might be new to you. Stopping there would be to lose out on a great opportunity to hear Hill, a truly unique artist, further reveal his great talent. It is absolutely worthwhile to keep listening through the Andrew Hill catalogue. One of the most profound releases of his came towards the end of his life, in 2005: Mosaic Select is an exquisite collection well worth tracking down.
What’s the story behind this singular musician? There is a story—actually, by Hill’s account, there are quite a few. Michael J. West does the patient work of carefully unraveling the mystique crafted by Andrew Hill. Part projection, part self-invention, part protection and decisive distancing, Hill didn’t make it easy for the prospective biographer to piece together the facts of his life and work. I was thrilled at the opportunity to learn more about Andrew Hill: his playing drew me in immediately when, years ago, someone kindly turned me on to the Black Fire album. West mercifully allows jazz listeners an understanding of Andrew Hill, the man and the musician, without engaging in the thin-air intellectual altitudes where a lot of jazz literature so fiercely resides, often out of the reach of those who simply seek to know more. Time Lines is deeply researched and superbly written. The pages are dense with references and quotes, but never overwhelming. This is a great read about a tremendous artist.
What’s the story behind this singular musician? There is a story—actually, by Hill’s account, there are quite a few. Michael J. West does the patient work of carefully unraveling the mystique crafted by Andrew Hill. Part projection, part self-invention, part protection and decisive distancing, Hill didn’t make it easy for the prospective biographer to piece together the facts of his life and work. I was thrilled at the opportunity to learn more about Andrew Hill: his playing drew me in immediately when, years ago, someone kindly turned me on to the Black Fire album. West mercifully allows jazz listeners an understanding of Andrew Hill, the man and the musician, without engaging in the thin-air intellectual altitudes where a lot of jazz literature so fiercely resides, often out of the reach of those who simply seek to know more. Time Lines is deeply researched and superbly written. The pages are dense with references and quotes, but never overwhelming. This is a great read about a tremendous artist.
Andrew Hill was simultaneously one of the kindest and most congenial people you could meet and also one of the all-time contrarians. This contrast is beautifully captured in Michael J. West's meticulously researched biography. West takes on the roles of historian, journalist, and fan. Andrew Hill could often exaggerate details of his life to build his mythology—some might call it fibbing—and some of the most entertaining parts of the book are when West gives Hill's side of the story then reins it in with what happened or might have happened.
It is fascinating to see the mind of Hill at work in this book. Though Hill was thoroughly immersed in the jazz culture of his time, his brain worked in a way that was unlike anyone else’s, which rendered him his own planet—though still with the outlines of what people recognize as jazz. Andrew Hill is one of the definitive geniuses of jazz from the 1960s onward, and this book is the definitive guide to the beautiful creativity of his universe. No matter how Andrew Hill studies evolve in the future, I have the feeling that you will always have to come back to this book.
It is fascinating to see the mind of Hill at work in this book. Though Hill was thoroughly immersed in the jazz culture of his time, his brain worked in a way that was unlike anyone else’s, which rendered him his own planet—though still with the outlines of what people recognize as jazz. Andrew Hill is one of the definitive geniuses of jazz from the 1960s onward, and this book is the definitive guide to the beautiful creativity of his universe. No matter how Andrew Hill studies evolve in the future, I have the feeling that you will always have to come back to this book.
No reviews yet