Andrew Hill (1931-2007) made his mark with Blue Note Records from this debut recorded in late 1963 and through a series of excellent albums that followed, such as Point of Departure and Judgment!, both of which have been featured here. While there was a decided push towards so-called "free jazz" during that era, Hill, being a pianist, continued with the emphasis on modal music, working with chord changes and fairly standard rhythmic accompaniment.
Yet, he was an experimenter and explored harmony, rhythm and texture, while also displaying an incredible talent for composition and melody, even he never achieved the renown or sales of such jazz figures as Miles Davis or John Coltrane. For Black Fire, he utilized another underappreciated player, the great Joe Henderson, who is usually seen, as Hill has been, as a hard bop tenor saxophonist, on his own albums and as an in-demand side player.
If anything, with Hill's compositions and complex comping with unusual chord structures, Henderson pushes his playing further "out" than he might otherwise have done and his keening, but tonally strong playing is uniformly excellent as he appears more than inspired. Then, there's the masterful rhythm section of bassist Richard Davis, always solid and wide-ranging, and Roy Haynes, with that readily identifiable "spreading" sound. Both of these masters recently left us, Davis in September 2023 and Haynes 14 months later, but they are phenomenal on this record (Haynes was a late replacement for the great Philly Joe Jones.)
As for Hill, his composing and playing are graceful, studied, mannered and, yet, still innovative and searching in a way that keeps the music tethered to traditional forms while pushing into areas that seek greater freedom for all involved. A core element, for this untutored listener, is how tight this quartet is in working with the structures of the pieces, accompanying solos and then demonstrating their mastery in the ensemble playing as well as when they are featured. Black Fire does have plenty of that and it never turns into an uncontrolled conflagration.
