Jazz owes a sizeable debt of gratitude to the United States Postal Service. When times were lean and gigs scarce many musicians found financial solace as mail workers. The steady source of gainful employment allowed them to woodshed and compose on the side and offered a refuge away from the often-maddening dynamics of the music business. Charles Mingus in Los Angeles, Joe McPhee in Poughkeepsie, and Buck Hill in D.C. to name just a few.
Buck Hill ranks as probably the least well known of the aforementioned three and his relative obscurity is understandable given his sporadic recording frequency over the years. Even so, his stature on the local Capitol City scene has endured for going on five decades. While it’s true that the JBs were referring to monetary compensation in their slogan-worthy song that serves as the title of this survey, the sentiment seems just as valid when applied to a few Buck Hill Steeplechase platters.
Coming of musical age in the potent '50s, Hill shared the bandstand with the likes of Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons and Max Roach. He made his recording debut as a member of Charlie Byrd’s band and contributed to the guitarist’s Byrd In the Wind , available on Riverside. Economic pressures and a family to feed forced him to consider other means of income. The flexibility of the post office afforded him room to play on the side.
Balancing a day job as mail carrier, Hill first found time to enter studio under Steeplechase auspices in the spring of '78. The New York rhythm section organized to accompany him was one of the most versatile mainstream units of that era. Kenny Barron, a regular leader in his own right who had already notched tenures with Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard among others, supplied the ivories, while Buster Williams held down the bass anchor. Hill’s long-time friend Billy Hart rounded the band out behind drum kit.
This is Buck Hill strikes with the simple declamatory confidence its name would imply. Hill steers clear of an easy clutch of standards and opts instead for a songbook favoring his own compositions. The Jerome Kern evergreen and Sonny Rollins complete the program with the opener “Tokudo,” a product of Williams’ pen. Digging in on the bassist’s blues-infused tune the band quickly finds its stride. Hill rolls out fifteen choruses of ebulliently voiced tenor as the rhythm section sustains a muscular support beneath and around him. His hard-charging confidence and leaping trills are immediately reminiscent of Booker Ervin in full bloom. Barron builds a swirling solo in the wake of Hill’s exhortations and Williams throbbing line supplies steadfast harmonic glue, eventually building into fat knuckled extemporization of its own. Hart carves out an emphatic break of rolls and cymbal shots to cap thing off and prime the band for a joint exit.
The lush ballad strains of “Yesterdays” cool the quartet’s jets a bit and they settle into a mellow groove on the sturdy back of William’s rotund bass. Hill blows velvet smooth through the familiar changes, showing that he’s far more than simple brawn and bluster. Barron’s comping contributes perfect dancing counterpoint and Hart holds down his end with sensitive stick restraint.
A breakneck “Oleo” offers the most thrilling moment of the date, a three-chorus break where the entire rhythm section drops out and Hill goes it alone in a melodic freefall without support of any kind. Uproarious applause that would have greeted such a feat in a concert setting is almost audible in the excitement. The piece also contains some of Hart’s most forceful traps play, cranking up the tension in fine fashion. Remaining tracks are all Hill-hatched starting with the psychedelically titled “I’m Aquarius.” The music belies the trappings of its title and Hill caresses the hope-suffused theme in line with Barron’s elegant, if somewhat sentimental, block chords and Hart’s tidal press roll washes.
