Ron Horton Sextet Performs Andrew Hill's "Passing Ships" at Settlement Music School in Philadelphia

Ron Horton Sextet performs
Andrew Hill's Passing Ships

Ron Horton, trumpet/flugelhorn
Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone
Scott Robinson, tenor saxophone
Ben Allison, double-bass
Frank Kimbrough, piano
Tim Horner, drums

Settlement Music School
416 Queen Street Philadelphia, PA

$15 General Admission
Seating is limited.

“The best jazz album of 2003 was recorded in 1969--then shelved, lost, forgotten, rediscovered and finally released 34 years later," - The New York Times. The reference is to Andrew Hill’s mysterious Blue Note release Passing Ships, an album quickly hailed by jazz critics as a masterpiece. Now in 2008--nearly 40 years later--the music from Andrew Hill’s seminal recording comes to life in Philadelphia.

Since 1982, trumpeter Ron Horton has been an integral part of New York's flourishing jazz scene and he stands out both as an exemplary instrumentalist and as a highly progressive composer and arranger. Whether called upon as a sideman or as a leader of one of his own ensembles, he shows that he is committed to further expanding the existing perimeters of jazz. Horton has had many long musical associations with leaders such as saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom (1983-2000) and pianist Andrew Hill. He was a member of Hill's sextet from 1998 until 2003, and appears on the group's critically acclaimed CD, Dusk (Palmetto 2000). He was also musical director and co-arranger for Hill's big band, and is featured on the CD, A Beautiful Day (Palmetto 2002).

Horton has also had an integral collaboration with New York's Jazz Composers Collective, going back to its inception in 1992, and appears on several cds by the other members of the group, such as Ben Allison and Michael Blake, as well as the collective's Herbie Nichols Project. He is an original member of the HNP, a group co-led by Frank Kimbrough and Allison, that is dedicated to performing known and unknown compositions of the late, great pianist. In 1995, Horton went to the Library of Congress and uncovered over three dozen of Nichols' songs that had never been recorded. Several of these works appear on the three cds released by the HNP on Soul Note and Palmetto. Through his work with the JCC, Horton has received composing grants from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and Meet the Composer.

This concert has been funded by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, through the Philadelphia Music Project.

This performance is part of ANW's Free/Form: Composer Portrait series.