Marquis Hill - The Way We Play

2016 CD release.

On The Way We Play, Hill fronts his regular ensemble of four years, the Blacktet, which consists of alto saxophonist Christopher McBride, vibraphonist Justin Thomas, drummer Makaya McCraven, and bassist Joshua Ramos. It’s a smart tactic because it plays to the strengths of Hill as a bandleader and affords the music a vivacious group accord that often comes from years of playing together. Hill, however, flips the scripts on the new disc. Instead of offering entirely original material as he did on his last three discs, he revisits a handful of jazz standards. “I want to pay homage to some of my favorite jazz standards and American songbook classics,” Hill says. “These are some of the songs that I came up playing in various jam sessions; these songs really taught me how to play jazz.”

The Way We Play is hardly a color-by-numbers jazz standards album. As Hill has done on his previous discs, he revitalizes the material by placing heavier emphasis on the groove, which enables the compositions to resonate more to a 21st-century jazz audience – hence the disc’s witty title. “I really want to make it very clear that this is the sound of my band, which is uniquely Chicago. I wanted to put everything on the table – this is the way that we play,” Hill explains. The Chicago Tribune asserts that the spirit of Chicago is deeply integral to his music by stating, “…his music crystallizes the hard-hitting, hard-swinging spirit of Chicago jazz.”