Hill Creates an Individualistic Sound Collage at Jazz Bakery

Pianist Andrew Hill has always traveled through jazz on his own path, at his own speed, and in his own good time. From the release of his first albums in the ‘60s to the present, he has been a musical outsider, taking what he feels he can use from the jazz mainstream, employing it in a fashion that satisfies his own singular creative vision.

On Tuesday night at the Jazz Bakery, he made a rare appearance as a soloist in a performance that further defined the utterly individualistic qualities of his music.

Starting with a pair of originals (one of which made occasional references to passages from Gershwin’s “Summertime”), Hill played in the pulsating rhythmic style that was also present in his most recent ensemble programs. The style, which moves in stuttering fits and starts, can be unsettling to listeners anticipating the familiar, flowing rhythms of jazz.

Further complicating the program, from a listener’s point of view, was Hill’s use of dense, often extremely dissonant harmonies. As with his rhythms, his chordal approach sometimes offered little sense of forward movement, simply coming to rest upon thick clusters of notes.

The creative reasoning behind this approach became a bit more apparent when he played the only familiar number in his set, the Raye/De Paul standard, “I’ll Remember April.” With a reference point from which to connect with Hill’s improvising, his collage-like method became a bit more clear. Deconstructing the song, reassembling it in bits and pieces, some connective, some not, his music came into perspective as a complete canvas of sound. Difficult and demanding music, to be sure, but worth the effort to experience one of the jazz world’s most determined iconoclasts.

* Andrew Hill at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Los Angeles. Continues through Sunday at 8 and 9:30 p.m., $22 admission. (310) 271-9039.