Marquis Hill Composers’ Collective @Jazz Showcase, Or, DnB With Some R&B Before NYE

Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photo by Dominic Guanzon.

By Dominic Guanzon

Friday 12/29/23

Finishing the year at the Jazz Showcase is always a fun and interesting visit. The word “jazz” can be heard more often here throughout the year, since a lot of the crowd winds up either being non-local students still getting acclimated to music in the city, or middle class-fancy suburbanites who get their Chicago culture exclusively from the Loop. I know this because I was both for several years, and I’m forever grateful to the Showcase for being my and many others’ port of jazz entry. I’ll never forget my first visit being Benny Golson himself on the Showcase stage in 2014, telling long stories in between his most iconic compositions.

On this night however, was the Marquis Hill Composers’ Collective – a group of jazz-trained players led by the trumpeter, employing their craft in a series of genre-bending songs. With the 8PM show sold out, I found myself in a line out the door for the 10PM. Hill is something of a hometown hero for some, and they made sure to make it known.

“I remember him from back in the day, you’re in for a good one,” appeared to be the consensus for folks leaving the first set.

Indeed, Hill made a big splash in Chicago in the 2010s, bringing an exciting, earthy sound and a  wealth of compositional prowess to his first three albums, starting with 2011’s “New Gospel.” In 2014, he gained official recognition with the prestigious award from the Thelonius Monk (now Herbie Hancock) Institute, but it was that same year’s “Modern Flows Vol. 1” EP that drew me into Hill’s world. Its trilogies of hard-hitting bop tunes, inspiring spoken word, R&B anchors, signature horn chants, and lush vibraphone hit me right between the eyes just as I was discovering jazz for myself in college. That era appeared to top off just as I graduated with 2016’s “The Way We Play” – a loving tribute to the city that gave him his start.

From there, things took a more transcendent approach. Releases such as “Meditation Tape,” “Soul Sign,” and 2023’s “Rituals + Routines” pushed things in a more late Coltrane-esque direction. The sound was evolving, but he never lost that romantic side with albums like “Love Tape” and the much-awaited “Modern Flows Vol. 2,” the latter of which is a true sequel in all the right ways

Funny enough, Hill moved to New York City in 2014, and in the past decade since the move, he has taken up worldly travels to Japan and Europe. Still, a week-long residency in Chicago to ring in the new year has all the aura of a kid stopping by their parent’s house for the holidays. This is especially true since he did the exact same thing last year, a tradition I hope continues.

(Left) an assortment of small percussive instruments Marquis Hill would use through out the night. (Top Right) Mike King’s Roland SH-201 synthesizer. (Bottom Right) Marquis Hill’s pedal board for his trumpet. Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photos by Dominic Guanzon.

Marquis Hill. Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photo by Dominic Guanzon.

Beginning without trumpet in hand, Marquis Hill instead put his fingers on the keyboard…of his laptop, which was placed on a music stand. Mike King’s synths began, and the rest of the band took up small, pocket-sized percussive instruments such as shakers and stringed shells in a wave of ambiance.

Spoken samples from Hill’s laptop emanated in short bursts of looped sentence fragments before becoming full sentences. Eventually, it formed a larger monologue from a speaker I wasn’t able to find, but is no less profound:

(Looped phrases in bold.)

“The issue is, you shouldn’t be going after trying to play jazz…You will never try to hear me play like I’m from New Orleans. I’m not from New Orleans, and I have no interest in doing that…But we do need to hear voices from a variety of communities, so I think the whole idea of chasing after imitation is dangerous…If this was your moment you’d like to express yourself, you’re not just gonna copy people.

That’s what you do when you rely on the notes, the scales in, but you don’t know about the culture of the people. So we’re just getting to the point where we’re wanting to learn the value of what our ancestors lived for us.”

This went on for a very short five minutes before the groove began in earnest, and the trumpet was finally deployed. Hill’s warm tone hides so much drama within, and combined with a certain kind of attentive lyricism, it’s not hard to see why. No matter what happens, the in and the out – the “in here” and “out there” – are very much in perfect harmony. It’s one of my favorite lenses to view music through, especially jazz, and I have an inkling that’s one way he does too.

For every five minute intro with free-form percussion rattles, or dense, angular solo runs, you have funky vamps or melodic capstones that just make sense. Hill has also assembled a collective mirroring that philosophy.

Pianist Mike King put himself on piano-keyboard double duty, placing a set of ebony and ivory on his left and right sides. His first solo of the night saw him firing off sixteenth notes on the Showcase’s house piano amidst a fast tempo, culminating in an unbroken run of notes so protracted, it would melt the barrel of an industrial machine if an operator held down the trigger for that long. The crowd loved it, with cheers and hollars doing a crescendo of their own after the first minute of said run. Drummer Corey Fonville mirrored King’s efforts, eventually switching the style over to a drum and bass (DnB)-type groove.

I’m hype whenever I hear DnB, or other styles close to it, on live drums. Not because I’m a DnB aficionado, but because it reminds me of the late 90s and early 2000s video games I grew up on. Seeing it played at the Jazz Showcase of all places was a welcome surprise. I treated it as a one-off, but on his next solo, King switched to his Roland SH-201 synthesizer and laid down measure-long chords in a vamp, using a synth pad sound that can only be described as coming out of a Japanese RPG from the aforementioned decades. Lo-fidelity enough to be distinct, King’s SH-201 was first released in 2006, and he played right into it with whole steps and pitch bend transitions between them.

Hill re-introduced another sampled quote (that I again I couldn’t find), before spitting out trumpet phrases through a heavily reverb-ed mic that was hooked up to a pedal:

“When we breathe in, that is god coming within us. The breath. And when we breathe out, it is the god concept leaving to join the world around us.”

In and out, then in, then out. Simple, then not. Looped samples of inspiration much like I heard at The Whistler this past summer. It’s not the absolute forefront of improvised music, it just feels like we’re in that territory. What we do have is a unique concoction of black and black-rooted music coming back around to its home. That’s not necessarily the Showcase or even Chicago, but it is on a stage being played by some of its finest players, and it is right to be there.

I’ve already taken a large tangent into these particular moments because I’m very partial to them, but the truth is that Hill’s Composers’ Collective ran a gamut of styles and influences. On his website’s “Bio” section, it reads:

“Contemporary and classic jazz, hip-hop, R&B, Chicago house, neo-soul—to Hill, they’re all essential elements of the profound African-American creative heritage he’s a part of. “It all comes from the same tree,” he says. ‘They simply blossomed from different branches.’”

There really is no better way to put it than that, though I can add that night’s sound leaned more into the contemporary jazz/neo-soul category, with added elements of world music as well. And Japanese RPG-esque DnB vamps.

(Foreground, synth) Mike King. (Background, trumpet) Marquis Hill. Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photo by Dominic Guanzon.

It took over 40 minutes before Marquis Hill took any announcement break, with the preceding medley bleeding into one another. That last leg opened with one more quote from someone I can’t trace back to, but is nonetheless relevant:

“For many of us, taking the road in life is a road that’s kind of easy access to be in. The road is a trail less taken, less trodden, less walked upon. It takes courage to take that road. It takes courage to be alone on this Yellow Brick Road. It takes courage to go into the unknown.”

Throughout the sampling, Hill used a sort of whistle to create a dissonant howl that championed the words coming through the house system in an almost primal way. It was almost as if we were taking that aforementioned road less trodden, with the wildlife and the darkness all-encompassing and none-to-distant. It’s a bit of a mystery if that darkness is something to embrace or combat. Maybe both. Either way, this intro led to a song that may have been the funkiest of the night.

Junius Paul. Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photo by Dominic Guanzon

Hill let the audience know someone in their band wasn’t able to make it that night because of a family obligation, but he would still play their song. “Ready For The People,” is a piece Hill “could superimpose my sound to,” and its stylish, homely soul line was one the band milked until it was worn out. It’s just that the tension surrounding that line was so strong, it lasted exceptionally well.

The in-and-out nature of the night’s pieces applies to Hill’s playing as well. No matter what, Marquis Hill always brings it back. To what? Something you can groove to, or turn into a lovely melodic idea you feel could make its own song. Maybe he will later. But in that moment, in that solo, it’s romance and mystique and lushness all around. Whether he’s playing brash and aggressively, or with a trumpet sock on his horn, it’s romance wrapped around that tone.

In “Life Days,” one of the first Hill wrote for his Collective, the entire band reverted back to their seemingly endless array percussive instruments, including palm-sized drums and more shells. The song was for when you’re having “one of those days,” and the audience collectively agreeing with their own nods and “mmhm”s allowed Hill to keep that phrase open-ended.

Like Quentin Coaxum back in July, Hill truly played the sampler, once again strategically looping on certain words like “I learn” to turn monologues into spiritual chants. We’ve come a long way since “A Love Supreme” was first chanted on record, and yet we seem to keep coming back to the same zen. Just maybe, it’s something worth heeding.

Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photo by Dominic Guanzon

Closing out the night was a song called “Opie,” and the Collective brought local sax player Isaiah Collier on board. It was always the case, but hearing Hill play his melodies with another horn reminded me this is the same artist recording “Modern Flows” nearly a decade ago. This was evident when he re-recorded his debut album as “New Gospel Revisited,” 11 years after the original. Yet hearing it live, despite his new home in New York and worldly travels, it still sounds like home.

There was one more surprise for the audience. In the middle of Isaiah’s solo, Micah Collier ([mai-kah], no relation) hopped on stage at the band’s behest. Junius Paul handed over his upright bass seamlessly to his counterpart, with Micah holding down a pedal note. In no more than three seconds, Paul pointed to his iPad, said a few words, and walked away. Micah simply nodded and played out the tune. Maybe the form was incredibly simple, and certainly if you’re a working musician like everyone on that bandstand, you really do pick up an ear for the changes, but it’s still a fun flex.

(Top) Isaiah Collier (background, sax) is invited to help close the night. (Bottom) Micah Collier hops on the bandstand mid-song. Jazz Showcase, 12/29/23. Photos by Dominic Guanzon.

On a personal note, it’s been a good half-year since I’ve been able to experience live music in the city in a way I can really appreciate it – unbothered and unrelenting. I am privileged and proud to hear it. Between the shakers, synths, shells, reverb pedals for the trumpet, and looped words of inspiration on the sampler, I am in love with it.

That’s a little dramatic, but the Showcase has too much official and personal history for me not to be. Nearly a decade coming full circle. Months away from the age of 30. And still it’s the music, Chicago’s music, brought to life by some of its finest stewards, makes me feel like I’m just getting started.

The Composers’ Collective is:

Marquis Hill (t, perc)

Mike King (p, synth, perc)

Junius Paul (b, perc)

Corey Fonville (d, perc)

Featuring:

Isaiah Colllier (as)Micah Collier (b)

Jazz Showcase,12/29/23. Photos by Dominic Guanzon

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