Andrew Hill & Chico Hamilton – Dreams Come True Joyous Shout! JS10010 (2008)
What a sorry album. This was recorded back in 1993 and then released in 2008 in the wake of Andrew Hill’s death. It should have stayed in the vaults. It’s clearly just a crass attempt to cash in on the publicity surrounding Hill’s death. The music is dull. Hill’s playing is aimless, and there are pointless drum fills from Chico Hamilton littered everywhere. One gets the sense the performers are trying to be too deferential to each other, to the point that neither steps up to take charge. So there is a definite lack of purpose in the music — like this is merely a recorded practice session. Take for instance “Watch That Dream,” which is a composition with plenty of potential, but Hamilton banging away on a tambourine is really too distracting to allow a listener to engage with the lovely melody. This recording is probably best ignored in the catalogs of both performers.