Andrew Hill - 1964
‘Refuge’ is from Andrew Hill’s indispensable 1965 album “Point of Departure”. The band – Eric Dolphy, Kenny Dorham, Joe Henderson, Richard Davis and Tony Williams rise brilliantly to this challenging music.
Andrew Hill’s adventurous compositions often have familiar anchors making the music challenging but still accessible. ‘Refuge’ uses repetition (the first four bars are mirrored by the second four bars) and a very basic harmonic underpinning (I-IV-V).
If we think of the piece as beginning in Bb minor shifting to F minor and then to Ab, the basic harmony is pretty straight forward (Example 1).
