The five exclamation marks following the word Compulsion are completely appropriate for a title. Of all the distinguished albums of Andrew Hill's career as a pianist/composer, this is arguably the most passionately executed. The monumentality of this recording can best be realized by looking at its recording date of 1965. Coltrane was leaving his classic quartet and experimenting with multiple drummers. Archie Shepp was likewise experimenting with heavily augmented percussion sections. Art Blakey's earlier recordings with various African and neo-African drummers were popularly circulating in jazz circles, as was Babatunde Olatunji's popular and influential Drums of Passion. Into this drum-laden time stepped Hill.
The five exclamation marks following the word Compulsion are completely appropriate for a title. Of all the distinguished albums of Andrew Hill's career as a pianist/composer, this is arguably the most passionately executed. The monumentality of this recording can best be realized by looking at its recording date of 1965. Coltrane was leaving his classic quartet and experimenting with multiple drummers. Archie Shepp was likewise experimenting with heavily augmented percussion sections. Art Blakey's earlier recordings with various African and neo-African drummers were popularly circulating in jazz circles, as was Babatunde Olatunji's popular and influential Drums of Passion. Into this drum-laden time stepped Hill.