Andrew Hill

Faces of Hope is a solo piano record Andrew Hill made in Milan in June 1980 for Soul Note, released that year as SN 1010. It closes a concentrated run: as Bill Shoemaker noted in Point of Departure, four of Hill's six solo albums were recorded within five years, from Hommage in 1975 to this one. Shoemaker described those years as a period of transition for Hill, who was then in his early forties and far from the attention of his Blue Note decade. He also argued that the solo records have been largely left out of detailed accounts of Hill's music, overshadowed by the ensemble work.

The session took place at Barigozzi Studios on 13 and 14 June 1980, produced by Giovanni Bonandrini and engineered by Giancarlo Barigozzi, with liner notes by Lee Jeske and a front cover painting by "Gigi" Barbieri. Three of the four pieces are Hill's. Rob It Mohe opens the record at almost fifteen minutes. The one outside tune is Ceora, the ballad by trumpeter Lee Morgan, which Hill takes in just over five minutes. The second half is given to Bayside, heard in two parts: the first lasts fifteen and a half minutes, the second about four and a half, so that the album is built around two extended solo statements with shorter pieces after each.

Soul Note CD 121010-2, which Discogs lists as a reissue of the 1980 LP SN 1010, with the original four tracks and about forty minutes of music.