For those not in the know, each of the ten tracks here on Rick Roe’s new album entitled Wake Up Call: The Music of Gregg Hill (out now via Cold Plunge Records) shows a different side to his language and personality. Tracks such as Inside Out presents a curious 12-bar blues with altered harmony, Modal Yodel #2 is a post-bop burner, the oscillating, half-step root movement on The Ringer winks at Monk’s Well, You Needn’t, as do those playful whole-tone wrist-flicks on the bridge; but the clever marriage of a 5/4 introduction to set up a tune in 3/4 is pure hill.

Wake Up Call was conceived as a fast swinger, a humorous evocation of a challenging 5am lobby call for touring musicians. He wrote an AAB form with a quirky, stop-and-go five-bar A section. The lickety-split 8-bar bridge provides harmony for solos. That’s how the Michael Dease Quintet played the piece on The Other Shoe.

Of course, Roe not only appreciates Hill’s unique voice as a composer, particularly the surprising twists of his tart melodies, but also the freedom that Hill bestowed on him as an arranger. What a gift, Roe says. It enhances that feeling of collaboration, allowing me to listen and respond with whatever the music triggers.

1. Inside Straight
2. Sunspiration
3. Wake Up Call
4. Wide River
5. The Return of Mr. Pea
6. Modal Yodel #2
7. La Canción
8. The Ringer
9. Hyperbarity
10. Double Play

With all the compositions belong to Gregg Hill, yet Roe’s involvement always felt as a soloist, an arranger-leader, a narrator, if you will, of shaping how the music unfolds, this new recording opens on the elegantly swish Inside Straight and the resplendent Sunspiration, and then we get the perkily playful title track Wake Up Call, the languishing beauty of Wide River, before the sparkling The Return of Mr. Pea is brought forth.

Along next is the touch-sensitive vibe of Modal Yodel #2 and the emotive La Canción, and they are in turn backed by the upbeat and joyful The Ringer, the set rounding out on the formatively sculpted Hyperbarity, coming to a close on the upbeat and emboldened Double Play.

Performers:
Rick Roe (piano)
Nate Winn (drums)
Robert Hurst (bass)
Marcus Elliot (tenor and soprano sax)

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