MARQUIS HILL

From his beginnings as one of Chicago’s most thrilling young trumpeters, to his current status as an internationally renowned musician, composer and bandleader, Marquis Hill has worked tirelessly to break down the barriers that divide musical genres. Contemporary and classic jazz, hip-hop, R&B, Chicago house, neo-soul—to Hill, they’re all essential elements of the profound African-American creative heritage he’s a part of. “It all comes from the same tree,” he says. “They simply blossomed from different branches.”

For Hill, playing and listening without limits has long been an instinct. “It comes naturally; that’s the way I hear the music,” he says. “I came up in a household where my mom played Motown, R&B, Isley Brothers, Barry White, Marvin Gaye. Then I received my first jazz record, by Lee Morgan, and that was added to the collection. … I truly believe that the music is all the same.”

Composers Collective: Beyond the Jukebox, a new album celebrating the compositions of others: in particular, a group of cherished colleagues and friends, many of them fellow Chicagoans, invited by Hill to compose a piece for the album with him specifically in mind. In addition to six of Hill’s compositions, the program includes pieces by Ernest Dawkins, Gary Bartz, Jeff Parker, Marcus Strickland, SABA, Geof Bradfield and Matt Gold, as well as the members of Hill’s core quintet: vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Michael King, bassist Junius Paul and drummer Corey Fonville.

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MARQUIS HILL

Award-winning trumpeter, composer and bandleader Marquis Hill, widely acclaimed for his soulful, eclectic modern jazz sensibility, is proud to present Composers Collective: Beyond the Jukebox, a new album celebrating the compositions of others: in particular, a group of cherished colleagues and friends, many of them fellow Chicagoans, invited by Hill to compose a piece for the album with him specifically in mind. In addition to six of Hill’s compositions, the program includes pieces by Ernest Dawkins, Gary Bartz, Jeff Parker, Marcus Strickland, SABA, Geof Bradfield and Matt Gold, as well as the members of Hill’s core quintet: vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Michael King, bassist Junius Paul and drummer Corey Fonville.

“I was thinking about the tradition in jazz where Dexter Gordon would record a Lee Morgan composition, or Freddie Hubbard would record a Wayne Shorter composition,” muses Hill. “I started to wonder, ‘When did we stop doing that, playing each other’s music?’ You learn so much playing other artists’ compositions. I thought it would be dope if I challenged myself to reach out to colleagues and have them specifically write a tune with me in mind. I got so much different music back from all these composers, and my challenge was to shape it into a Marquis Hill project. There will definitely be a second volume.”

Following up such earlier releases as Rituals + Routines, Soul Sign, Modern Flows, Love Tape and New Gospel Revisited, Hill continues with Composers Collective to blend elements of post-bop and contemporary jazz with R&B, hip-hop and other flavors, in the firm belief that Black music is one vast continuum. “I studied and lived the music and realized that it all comes from the same tree,” Hill declares. “All I want to do is make something that really resonates with people. It might have aspects that sound like Kendrick Lamar or Ray Charles, or ’70s soul—the first single ‘Pretty For the People’ takes me back to The Stylistics. It’s a mosaic of all this great music that I’ve always loved.”

In addition to the core quintet, Hill invites an array of top-tier instrumentalists to the affair: pianist Gerald Clayton on Jeff Parker’s soaringly melodic “Pretty for the People,” Parker himself on guitar for Junius Paul’s Afrobeat-tinged “Life Days,” alto saxophonist (and Grammy-winning producer) Josh Johnson on Chicago rapper and producer SABA’s springy funk invention “Joseph Beat,” alto saxophonist Caroline Davis on Michael King’s uptempo Rhodes-infused burner “Some Melody n Shit,” and drummer Makaya McCraven on an inspired rendition of Gary Bartz’s classic “Libra” titled “Libra (South Node)” (available as a bonus track).

Hill’s originals—“A Star Is Born,” “The Cool (Constantly Operating on Love),” “Enter the Stargate,” “I Promise to Listen,” “Step on Step (Smoke Break)” and “When You’ve Got an Attitude (Still Love You)”—receive authoritative treatments from the core quintet, as does Chicago tenorist Geof Bradfield’s “Meshell,” a spirited tribute to the Grammy-winning bassist and singer-songwriter. Three Hill tunes feature the Chicago vocalist Manasseh, who met Hill around 2019 at SPACE in Evanston. “That night the seed was planted,” the trumpeter recalls. “Manasseh’s sound has a unique warmth that adds so much to the project.”

Vocalist Christie Dashiell, who appeared on Hill’s Love Tape from 2019, returns on Composers Collective to lend pathos and allure to Corey Fonville’s groovy love song “Chef’s Kiss.” “I met Christie at the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program in DC,” says Hill, “when Dr. Billy Taylor was still there, around 2013. I fell in love with her sound. We’ve toured with [pianist] Helen Sung and it’s always been a vibe.” Samora Pinderhughes delivers a gripping vocal on “Balladesque,” by Chicago tenor stalwart Ernest Dawkins, who recorded a version with Hill on trumpet on his 2011 album The Prairie Prophet. “I wanted to flip this tune and make it romantic,” Hill says. “It was the lightness and purity of Samora’s voice that came to mind. It’s such a beautiful melody. Ernest was gracious enough to allow me to add some lyrics to it.”

Blue Note recording artist and fellow Chicagoan Joel Ross weighs in with the concluding “I Remembered You,” a hypnotic vamp under a Stefon Harris voiceover, preceded by an ethereal trumpet/vibes duet. “We all knew that Joel had something special in the lineage of Chicago music,” Hill recalls. “He was a bad dude even back in high school at 14 or 15 years old. He’s always had that special thing and it’s just continued to develop.” The album also includes a second Michael King composition, the lithe and hard-swinging “Two Check (for the Rich and Wealthy),” as well as “The OG’s (Organic People)” by tenor and bass clarinet master and Twi-Life bandleader Marcus Strickland (with spoken segment byStefon Harris). “Shorter Days (Longer Nights),” by guitarist and friend Matt Gold, harks back to the first sound on this album, the voice of the late Wayne Shorter, speaking on artistic courage as Hill’s “A Star Is Born” plays, grooving and polyrhythmic, the leader’s resplendent legato trumpet tone front and center.

Though Hill has become a major presence on the New York jazz scene, his past five or six albums were all recorded in Chicago. “I enjoy recording here,” he remarks. “There’s a spot called Palisade, another called SHIRK Studios. They’re comfortable. They feel like home. But having a connection to New York allows me to continue to expand. There’s some cats I still haven’t played with, and New York is a city of inspiration, it makes you a little sharper. ‘Iron sharpens iron,’ as I always say.”

COMPOSERS COLLECTIVE: BEYOND THE JUKEBOX // BLACK MUSIC UNLIMITED

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That mission to bring styles together, complemented by Hill’s absolute mastery of his instrument, is a through line connecting his many achievements. It can be heard on his latest album, Modern Flows Vol. II, with its seamless blend of jazz interplay, hip-hop-infused rhythms and socially conscious spoken-word. It’s integral to The Way We Play, his Concord Jazz debut from 2016, where Hill and his musicians reinvent jazz standards using their generation’s wide- ranging influences. It marks the four records Hill self-released before November of 2014, when he won the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz competition and became a presence on the global scene virtually overnight. And it defines the revelatory live dates by Hill’s longtime working group, the Blacktet, which the Chicago Tribune called “a remarkably polished, immensely attractive ensemble.”

Born in Chicago in 1987 and raised on the city’s culturally rich South Side, Hill began playing drums at age 4, before switching to trumpet in the 6th grade. He attended high school at Kenwood Academy, excelling in its revered jazz-performance program, and was mentored by Bobby Broom, Willie Pickens, Tito Carrillo and other Chicago greats through the Ravinia Jazz Scholars program. Hill earned his bachelor’s in music education from Northern Illinois University and his master’s in jazz pedagogy from DePaul University. During college he made gigs and sessions around Chicago, jamming with and absorbing wisdom from the likes of Fred Anderson, Ernest Dawkins and Von Freeman. Even then, Hill was known in town as a stunningly gifted trumpeter with a soulful, highly textured tone. His sound is now somehow both deeply distinctive and a tour through jazz-trumpet history, evoking the high-drama stillness and space of Miles; the undeniable virtuosity of Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard; the groove- savvy phrasing of Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd; and much more.

Well before Hill won the Monk prize—arguably the most important jazz competition in the world—his reputation for brilliance was firmly established in the Midwest, as a

member of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, an in-demand sideman and a bandleader. He also developed into a precocious, determined young label owner, and has released five acclaimed discs—New Gospel,Sounds of the City, The Poet and Modern Flows Vols. I and II—through his Black Unlimited Music Group imprint. “Just having my personality, there’s nothing like being in control of what you produce and put out into the world,” he says. “It’s a great feeling.”

A move to New York in 2014 helped him gain wider exposure and new opportunities—though he frequently returns to his hometown for gigs and projects—and in recent years Hill has garnered an enviable spate of press. Previewing a Blacktet show, the New Yorker said, “His performances and recordings reveal a smart post-bop player who circumvents genre clichés by incorporating elements of hip-hop and contemporary R. & B.” Of The Way We Play, DownBeatwrote, “The groove-laden arrangements provide the perfect soundscape for Hill’s fluid improvisational style, which, with its glass-like lucidity, recalls the crisp elegance of hard-bop stalwart Donald Byrd.” In 2016, Hill earned first place in the “Rising Star–Trumpet” category in that magazine’s storied Critics Poll. Throughout his journey, he has supported and guested with a who’s who of jazz that includes Marcus Miller, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Boney James, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano and Hill’s trailblazing Chicago peer Makaya McCraven.