The Jazzcat

 

I've been asked by composer and pianist Andrew Hill's family to announce

to 

the press that he died at 4 a.m. today, April 20, 2007,

several years after 

being diagnosed with lung cancer. He was 75 years old and lived in Jersey 

City, NJ. 
 

Hill,

born June 30, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois (contrary to some

previously published places and dates) had a lengthy international

career as performer and recording artist, and educator (at Portland

State

University; he also gave master classes at New York University, and

elsewhere; he

leaves a voluminous and highly varied recorded legacy, dating from the

1950s (So In Love) to his 2006 trio album Time Lines (Blue Note), named

to many

critics' top ten lists. Hill is survived by his wife Joanne Robinson

Hill, and a niece, nephew and cousin, besides a devoted coterie of

friends, typically creative artists and perceptive fans.

As announced on April 11, Andrew Hill will receive an honorary doctorate

of 

music degree from Berklee College of Music at commencement May 12; other 

honorees “for their achievements in the world of music, and for

their enduring contributions to American and international culture”

this year are Gloria and Emilio Estefan, and The Edge; this distinction

has previously been extended to Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Tito

Puente, Quincy Jones and Ahmet Ertegun, among a few others. A press

release from Berklee is attached, or can be obtained  from Allen

Bush, Office of Public Information, 617-747-2658. 
 

 

On April 3, 2007 Boosey & Hawkes music publishers

announced the addition of 

Andrew Hill “to its distinguished roster of composers” whose works

will be 

promulgated through its auspices. For information on that agreement, contact 

Adina Williams, via the B&H (Click Link Above). I have attached their press release, too. 
 

Andrew was voted Jazz Composer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists 

Association four times, most recently in 2006; he received the 2003

JazzPar 

Award, and was one of the first to receive a Doris Duke Foundation Award for 

jazz composers. His recordings have been on Blue Note, Mosaic, Palmetto

and 

Black Saint/Soul Note, among other labels.

Funeral and tribute information has not been determined. For further 

information, call me at (212) 533-9495. I first met Andrew in 1971, we

kept 

in touch and became friendly, I regard him highly and am enriched to have 

known him. ;

 

Howard Mandel