Dazzling music from 1969, way ahead of its time, by a nonet with Woody Shaw and Dizzy Reece on trumpets, Joe Farrell on reeds, woodwinds, and English horn, Bob Northern on French horn, Howard Johnson on tuba and bass clarinet, Ron Carter on bass. Fresh from Bitches Brew, Lenny White plays drums at just his second recording session; trombonist Julian Priester is a few months away from Mwandishi.
Sideways establishes Hill’s signature twist on Monk and Bud Powell, with its angular, sinewy restlessness, and Caribbean tang. The horns are crossly careering. The evocative title cut has classical, cinematic manners, but in the service of East of the River Nile mysticism. Plantation Bag is magnificent, delirious, epic funk, with Lenny White channelling Clyde Stubblefied, and Ron Carter dug in deep. Noon Tide tears way further eastwards, in the same urgent cohort as classics like Yusef Lateef’s Chang, Chang, Chang and Pete La Roca’s Dancing Girls. Cascade is precisely skittering and eruptive, with wonderful trumpet-playing. Yesterday’s Tomorrow is playful, both jaunty and rueful, undecided, to close.
The arrangements throughout are imperious; the playing is uniformly superb. “We had rehearsal time and a lot of studio time. Some of those songs, we did take 45 or take 50. We played them over and over and over, till we got a complete take just right.’‘
Knockout.