Andrew Hill - Judgement! (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition) [Half-Speed Master]

Judgment! caught Andrew Hill in the middle of the most productive five-month stretch of his career, one of three genuine classics he cut for Blue Note in that window alongside Black Fire and Point of Departure, now half-speed mastered by Kevin Gray from the original tapes.

Alfred Lion himself considered Hill as singular a compositional voice as Thelonious Monk, and Blue Note documented him with the kind of urgency that reputation demanded. For this 1964 session Hill assembled a quartet built for genuine risk, Bobby Hutcherson's vibraphone giving the harmony somewhere unusual to live, Richard Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones bringing the same restless, propulsive drumming that defined Coltrane's classic quartet. Rudy Van Gelder captured all of it at his Englewood Cliffs studio, and the result sits alongside Hill's other landmark records without ever feeling like an afterthought.

Siete Ocho announces the record's whole approach in its title alone, a seven-eight time signature that immediately signals Hill's disinterest in playing it straight. Yokada Yokada carries genuine playfulness underneath its harmonic complexity, Hutcherson and Hill trading ideas rather than simply accompanying each other. Alfred, the ballad named for Lion himself, is the record's most tender, inquisitive moment.

Six originals, one restless mind refusing to write the same tune twice. This pressing finally gives it the fidelity the compositions always deserved.