Andrew Hill

Point Of Departure Andrew Hill Japan Import edition

Legendary producer Alfred Lion believed he had found a new pianist and composer in Andrew Hill who could rival the legendary Thelonious Monk in terms of charisma and originality. Hill made his debut in the Blue Note catalog in 1963 with an impressive creativity that led to the production of four albums within just five months, all of which were to become jazz classics: “Black Fire”, “Smoke Stack”, “Judgment” and “Point Of Departure”, his greatest masterpiece.

The album helped broaden Hill's artistic horizons, as the band consisted of six instrumentalists with very different characteristics: the great Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone, flute and bass clarinet, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, trumpeter Kenny Dorham, double bassist Richard Davis and drummer Tony Williams. This extraordinary sextet recorded unforgettable reinterpretations of famous pieces such as “Refuge”, “New Monastery”, “Flight 19” and “Dedication”. The recording sessions for “Point Of Departure” took place on March 21, 1964 at the Rudy Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

As part of the extremely popular “Blue Note 85th Anniversary Reissue Series”, Universal Music Japan presents the sonically impressive remastering of this jazz classic by the legendary Kevin Gray, who is also responsible for the analog reissues of Blue Note US such as “Tone Poet” and “Classic Vinyl” – as a limited-edition UHQCD.

UHQCD stands for Ultimate High Quality Compact Disc and is a joint development of the Japanese CD replication company Memory-Tech and the Audio Quality CD Company from Hong Kong. Unlike conventional CDs, UHQCDs are not pressed from polycarbonate, but cast from a photopolymer and cured with UV light. Another layer of high-purity polycarbonate is applied to the softer photopolymer for scratch protection. The combination results in significantly reduced reflection of laser light inside the CD and an unmatched precise edge transition between pits and lands of the CD. UHQCDs are 100% compatible with standard CD players. Musically, the result is a sound image strongly reminiscent of analog master tapes.

While Universal Music Japan's first UHQCD series relied on the DSD data of previous SHM-SACD releases, with increasing popularity, albums that had not previously been released as SHM-SACD are now appearing. Typically, the Universal Archive master tapes are re-converted to DSD for this purpose. UHQCDs are ideal for music lovers who want to get as close as possible to the sound of the recording, but do not own an SACD player.