Andrew Wilcox - Dear Mr. Hill (2024)

The title of Dear Mr. Hill, the engaging debut album by the gifted, Hartford-based pianist and composer Andrew Wilcox, is addressed to the legendary Andrew Hill. But the album as a whole, a spirited mix of original compositions and keenly chosen standards, is a missive from Wilcox to the many mentors and influences that have guided him along his path.

“The elements that are at the core of this album are the people, places and things that have inspired me along the way,” Wilcox says. ““Andrew Hill’s music hit me in a very deep, emotional place. It was the first time I’d heard somebody who was able to paint such complex emotional portraits in ways that I’d never heard before.”

Due out August 16, 2024 via Truth Revolution Recording Collective, Dear Mr. Hill not only conveys the musical inspiration of those teachers and influences, but surrounds Wilcox with them. The album teams Wilcox with the veteran rhythm section of bassist Avery Sharpe and drummer Yoron Israel, both of whom have taken the young pianist under their prodigious wings. The date was produced by fellow pianist and Truth Revolution co-founder Zaccai Curtis, while the liner notes were penned by the trumpeter Haneef Nelson.

In his notes, Nelson hails Wilcox as, “one of the most promising new voices I’ve heard on the piano in a long time.”

Dear Mr. Hill reflects a broader base of influence and experience than just Wilcox’s musical evolution. The music he composed for the album also draws upon his love for and exploration of the natural world, his soul-searching introspection, and the support of his immediate and extended family. “All of my influences have become an integral part of what I do,” he says.

The album opens with the sweeping “Muir Woods,” an awe-filled tribute to the towering redwoods of the Bay Area forest. Wilcox recalls his first experience hiking the woods and encountering the hushed reverence of its famed Cathedral Grove as “a spiritual experience.” He speaks in similar tones of the old-growth Hoh Rain Forest in Washington State, which he explores in the lovely, lyrical solo piece “Hoh.”

Ushered in by the thunderclap of Israel’s mallets, the stark yet tender “Mary” is dedicated to a close friend of Wilcox’s family who he holds as close as his own blood relatives. “My family had dinner with this second family every week throughout my childhood,” he explains. “Everybody around the table was roughly my grandparents’ age, but we were all close. Just as I’d just finished writing this piece I got a call from my Dad that Mary had just passed away from cancer. The timing told me that this song was for her, and I think about her every time I play it.”

Another beloved family member is remembered with “The Snow Queen’s Smile,” an ode to the Wilcox’s sadly missed golden retriever Koa. “For our family, she was everything,” Wilcox says. “We could always go to the dog for comfort and losing her was hard on all of us. Her nickname was ‘Snow Queen’ because she loved to bound through snow banks.”

The bold “Onyx Warrior,” meanwhile, pays homage to the late drummer Ralph Peterson Jr., who became a source of immense encouragement and wisdom for Wilcox during the last year of his too-short life. It was through Peterson that the pianist achieved one of his most memorable opportunities, supporting vocalist Jazzmeia Horn at the venerable Newport Jazz Festival.

Wilcox’s final original, “Self-Doubt,” looks inward for inspiration, delving deep into the questioning and uncertainty that confronts us all in the darkest corners of our brains. The album is completed by a pair of familiar standards: a reharmonized “Stella by Starlight” and a brisk, surging “Old Devil Moon.”