Rick Roe, Tribute: The Music of Gregg Hill Review

The Architect’s Songbook: Gregg Hill’s Structural Imagination

By Ferell Aubre

Rick Roe’s Tribute: The Music of Gregg Hill is a study in compositional elegance. Hill, a Lansing-based composer with a wide-ranging compositional voice, has quietly written himself into the fabric of contemporary jazz. Hill’s music is a journey of threading together jazz from the past and present with other genres’ aesthetics. This trio record, with pianist Rick Roe joined by bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Nate Winn, offers twelve of Hill’s compositions arranged for piano trio by Roe. What emerges is a sonic compendium of ideas that flow between the composer, the arranger, and the musicians.

The collection opens with “Elden’s Bop,” a piece that encapsulates Hill’s taste for structural surprise. Beginning with a breezy melody that plays with rhythmic displacement, the piece pivots into a swinging 4/4, a rhythmic modulation that functions both as a mood shift and a formal pivot. Hill uses this device as narrative: a subtle evolution from charm to drive. Roe’s phrasing in his solo is bop-rooted yet light, as Hurst and Winn support every measure with finesse.

“Ducks Night Out” draws on minor blues coloration but distinguishes itself through an arco bass introduction. Hurst’s bowed textures mirror the dusky whimsy of Hill’s title. Structurally, the tune flows with layers and moods, from a noirish, relaxed groove to a deep pocket swing. This gives the form a dramatic contour. Hill’s gift lies in manipulating listener expectation without severing their orientation.

“Mr. Pea,” the shortest piece on the album, introduces a Latin rhythmic framework, giving the album a jolt of color. In less than three minutes, Hill condenses a syncopated thematic cell and spins it through a taut formal arc. Roe’s solo is characterized by gestures of time, playful, and pointed.

“Julie’s Tune” is a relaxed swing ballad where Hill’s emotionally charged melody is beautifully performed by the trio. The slow swing ballad stretches into seven minutes of lyrical development of piano, bass, and drums, all taking the spotlight. Harmonically, it lingers in familiar territory but modulates with subtle turns that enrich its emotional pull. The structure expands through repetition and variation, giving Roe and Co. ample room to explore the tune’s melodic implications.

With “Sunday Special,” Hill leans into a funky blues setting as a setting and an effective device. The piece feels like a hybrid between gospel and shuffle blues, and its structure supports an unfolding groove more than a tight harmonic narrative. Still, there’s careful craftsmanship here in the harmonic rhythm shifts just enough to keep the form alive, and Roe’s phrasing helps articulate these shifts clearly.

The title track, “Tribute,” is an example of Hill’s rhythmic inventiveness in various feels. Alternating between multiple styles and time feels, the composition juxtaposes rhythmic climates within a single form. The bridge’s release into swing is both a temporal shift and a textural one. This creates the perfect setting for the trio’s dialogue.

“Floating Candles” is Hill’s most impressionistic offering, an almost modal exploration that eschews classic song form in favor of motif development. It begins with a vamp-like figure and spins outward in textural layers. This piece reveals Hill’s comfort with open form: repetition and transformation as formal strategies.

“Ballade” has a narrative structure that the title suggests. Beginning with a slow unfolding melody that transitions into medium swing. This building by the trio within-form reflects Hill’s ability to treat the compositional content in a way that promotes player exploration and ensemble interaction. The harmonic change illuminates the flow, showing two facets of a single theme as the composer and performers unite.

“Sharrie Sharrie” revisits bebop territory, presenting an angular head and brisk harmonic movement. Hill avoids formula as the harmony moves logically, and his melodic lines are jagged but coherent, using intervals to sculpt direction. The tune unfolds in 32 bars but packs within it several unexpected harmonic feints that reward repeated listens. The trio swings with joy and a deep pocket.

“Soul Element” begins with Roe performing gorgeous voicings in rubato before slipping into a buoyant medium swing melody. The architecture here is clear, with form providing space for the trio’s relaxed yet precise interplay. This track exemplifies Hill’s understanding that simplicity is a sign of command of essentials.

“Summer Nights” is lush and lyrical, echoing Ellingtonian aesthetics in its voicing and mood. Harmonically, it moves with grace, pivoting between tonal centers with quiet authority. Hill writes as if he were painting with harmony. Hurst’s bass solo is fluid and lyrical.

Finally, “The Singer” is the perfect epilogue. The form is clear, and the melody is songful. Hill channels the Great American Songbook in spirit while retaining his voice. It’s a reminder that the final word in composition is always melody.

Tribute: The Music of Gregg Hill showcases three masterful performers performing in conjunction with compositional clarity, thematic economy, and formal imagination. For jazz fans, this album reveals that jazz composition, in Hill’s hands, is still an architecture of possibility.