Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Andrew Hill

Black Fire

2014 · Blue Note BST 84151 · Stereo · US (Blue Note Records Inc., New York USA label; pressed by a US plant) · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Blue Note
Catalogue number	BST 84151
Year	2014
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US (Blue Note Records Inc., New York USA label; pressed by a US plant)
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Post-Bop/Avant-Garde
Producer	Alfred Lion
Composer	Andrew Hill
Musicians	Andrew Hill (piano), Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), Richard Davis (bass), Roy Haynes (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  B0021306.01-A-G1 IS ○U
Side B:  B0021306-01-B G1 IS ○U MASTERED BY CAPITOL

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NN/NM

Variant chronology

1964 - US mono, deep-groove, New York USA labels, Van Gelder stamp and Plastylite ear
1964 - US stereo, deep-groove, New York USA labels, Van Gelder stamp and Plastylite ear
1966 - US stereo repress, New York USA labels
1966 - US stereo repress, Blue Note/Liberty label
1973 - US stereo repress, All Disc pressing
1977 - US stereo repress
1978 - Japan King pressing, with obi
2014 - US reissue, Blue Note Records Inc./UMe, New York USA-style labels, mastered by Capitol  <- this copy
2019 - Worldwide reissue, Blue Note B0029975-01

This Pressing

2014 reissue (stereo) - Blue Note Records Inc./UMe New York USA-style label, copyright dated 2014, mastered by Capitol; a later pressing, not an original.

The Album

Andrew Hill recorded Black Fire in November 1963 for Blue Note, his first date for the label as a leader after a long, restless apprenticeship that had taken him from his native Haiti-born upbringing in Chicago through work with Dinah Washington, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and other touring bands. By the time he settled into Blue Note's circle he had absorbed Monk, Bud Powell, Debussy and Ravel in equal measure, and Black Fire announced a pianist-composer determined to stretch hard bop's harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary without abandoning its swing. Joined by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, bassist Richard Davis and drummer Roy Haynes - three of the most harmonically alert and rhythmically elastic players on the scene - Hill built the album entirely from his own compositions, pieces that shift meter and tonal center within single phrases while still inviting improvisation. The result sits at a pivotal point in the mid-1960s jazz avant-garde, neither as free as Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor nor as conventional as the mainstream hard-bop date, and it helped define Blue Note's own brand of exploratory postbop alongside contemporaries like Wayne Shorter and Eric Dolphy. Black Fire established Hill's reputation as a singular compositional voice and opened an extraordinarily fertile run of Blue Note albums over the following two years. Critics have long ranked it among the most important debuts of the label's 1960s avant-leaning catalogue, and it remains central to any account of how postbop absorbed and tempered the era's freer impulses.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Pumpkin
2. Subterfuge
3. Black Fire

Side 2

1. Cantarnos
2. Tired Trade
3. McNeil Island
4. Land of Nod

The Label

Both sides show the white-ground, blue-banded Blue Note design with BLUE NOTE spelled in white down the left edge and along the bottom, '33 1/3 STEREO LONG PLAYING / BLUE NOTE RECORDS INC • NEW YORK USA' printed in the upper field, and no 'b' logo or drummer device - a modern reproduction of the New York USA label style Blue Note used between 1961 and 1967. The small type beneath the catalogue number reads '© 2014 Blue Note Records...Blue Note® is a registered trademark of Capitol Records, LLC,' a copyright line that cannot predate the year it carries. That 2014 mark places this pressing well below the deep-groove New York USA originals and the 1960s-70s repress chain it visually imitates; it is a later reissue pressed from the catalogue number, not an original-era pressing. The runout etching (B0021306-01-A/B, 'MASTERED BY CAPITOL') confirms the modern mastering chain tied to this label printing.

Fidelity

This 2014 pressing was cut from a mastering chain at Capitol Mastering rather than by Rudy Van Gelder, and is pressed by a contemporary US plant rather than the vintage New York plants used for the originals. Collectors on the forums generally regard the early-1960s Van Gelder-cut, deep-groove New York USA originals as the sonic benchmark for this title, with the Liberty-era and 1970s represses next in line; later reissue mastering such as this one, and subsequent audiophile cuts, are valued more for availability and condition than for outright sonic superiority. Within the title's fidelity hierarchy this pressing ranks below the deep-groove Van Gelder-cut originals and below later audiophile series reissues of the same recording.

Notes

This pressing of Black Fire is the 2014 stereo reissue, identifiable by its Blue Note Records Inc./UMe copyright line dated 2014 and the Capitol-mastered runout etching (B0021306-01-A/B). The label reproduces the classic New York USA Blue Note design but the printed 2014 copyright cannot predate that year, placing the pressing well after the 1964 deep-groove original and the subsequent 1960s-70s repress chain. No deep groove, Van Gelder hand-etch, or Plastylite ear appears in this pressing's runout; the modern Capitol-mastered stamp is the defining mark of this edition.

Documenting collections

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