MARQUIS HILL
(Booking Worldwide excluding EU/UK)
PROJECTS:
Marquis Hill (4-5piece) - trumpet, keyboards, bass, drums, vibes
TOUR:
2025 - Available upon request
2026 - Available upon request
NEW ALBUM:
COMPOSERS COLLECTIVE: BEYOND THE JUKE BOX - releasing august 30, 2024, on blaack unlimited music group.
ACCLAIMED TRUMPETER MARQUIS HILL SOARS ON COMPOSERS COLLECTIVE: BEYOND THE JUKEBOX, FEATURING MUSIC BY FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, HEROES
Marquis Hill, trumpet
Joel Ross, vibes/marimba
Michael King, piano
Junius Paul, bass
Corey Fonville, drums
Guests:
Gerald Clayton, piano
Makaya McCraven, drums
Jeff Parker, guitar
Josh Johnson, Caroline Davis, alto sax
Samora Pinderhughes, Manasseh, Christie Dashiell, vocals
ABOUT THE ALBUM:
Award-winning trumpeter, composer and bandleader Marquis Hill, widely acclaimed for his soulful, eclectic modern jazz sensibility, is proud to present Composers Collective: Beyond the Jukebox, a new album celebrating the compositions of others: in particular, a group of cherished colleagues and friends, many of them fellow Chicagoans, invited by Hill to compose a piece for the album with him specifically in mind. In addition to six of Hill’s compositions, the program includes pieces by Ernest Dawkins, Gary Bartz, Jeff Parker, Marcus Strickland, SABA, Geof Bradfield and Matt Gold, as well as the members of Hill’s core quintet: vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Michael King, bassist Junius Paul and drummer Corey Fonville.
“I was thinking about the tradition in jazz where Dexter Gordon would record a Lee Morgan composition, or Freddie Hubbard would record a Wayne Shorter composition,” muses Hill. “I started to wonder, ‘When did we stop doing that, playing each other’s music?’ You learn so much playing other artists’ compositions. I thought it would be dope if I challenged myself to reach out to colleagues and have them specifically write a tune with me in mind. I got so much different music back from all these composers, and my challenge was to shape it into a Marquis Hill project. There will definitely be a second volume.”
BIO:
From his beginnings as one of Chicago’s most thrilling young trumpeters, to his current status as an internationally renowned musician, composer and bandleader, Marquis Hill has worked tirelessly to break down the barriers that divide musical genres. Contemporary and classic jazz, hip-hop, R&B, Chicago house, neo-soul—to Hill, they’re all essential elements of the profound African-American creative heritage he’s a part of. “It all comes from the same tree,” he says. “They simply blossomed from different branches.”
That mission to bring styles together, complemented by Hill’s absolute mastery of his instrument, is a through line connecting his many achievements. It can be heard on his latest album, Modern Flows Vol. II, with its seamless blend of jazz interplay, hip-hop-infused rhythms and socially conscious spoken-word. It marks the four records Hill self-released before November of 2014, when he won the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz competition and became a presence on the global scene virtually overnight. And it defines the revelatory live dates by Hill’s longtime working group, the Blacktet, which the Chicago Tribune called “a remarkably polished, immensely attractive ensemble.”
Born in Chicago in 1987 and raised on the city’s culturally rich South Side, Hill began playing drums at age 4, before switching to trumpet in the 6th grade. He attended high school at Kenwood Academy, excelling in its revered jazz-performance program, and was mentored by Bobby Broom, Willie Pickens, Tito Carrillo and other Chicago greats through the Ravinia Jazz Scholars program. Hill earned his bachelor’s in music education from Northern Illinois University and his master’s in jazz pedagogy from DePaul University. During college he made gigs and sessions around Chicago, jamming with and absorbing wisdom from the likes of Fred Anderson, Ernest Dawkins and Von Freeman. Even then, Hill was known in town as a stunningly gifted trumpeter with a soulful, highly textured tone. His sound is now somehow both deeply distinctive and a tour through jazz-trumpet history, evoking the high-drama stillness and space of Miles; the undeniable virtuosity of Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard; the groove- savvy phrasing of Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd; and much more.
Well before Hill won the Monk prize—arguably the most important jazz competition in the world—his reputation for brilliance was firmly established in the Midwest, as a member of the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, an in-demand sideman and a bandleader. He also developed into a precocious, determined young label owner, and has released five acclaimed discs—New Gospel, Sounds of the City, The Poet and Modern Flows Vols. I and II—through his Black Unlimited Music Group imprint. “Just having my personality, there’s nothing like being in control of what you produce and put out into the world,” he says. “It’s a great feeling.”
A move to New York in 2014 helped him gain wider exposure and new opportunities—though he frequently returns to his hometown for gigs and projects—and in recent years Hill has garnered an enviable spate of press. Previewing a Blacktet show, the New Yorker said, “His performances and recordings reveal a smart post-bop player who circumvents genre clichés by incorporating elements of hip-hop and contemporary R. & B.” Of The Way We Play, DownBeat wrote, “The groove-laden arrangements provide the perfect soundscape for Hill’s fluid improvisational style, which, with its glass-like lucidity, recalls the crisp elegance of hard-bop stalwart Donald Byrd.”
In 2016, Hill earned first place in the “Rising Star–Trumpet” category in that magazine’s storied Critics Poll. Throughout his journey, he has supported and guested with a who’s who of jazz that includes Marcus Miller, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Boney James, Kurt Elling, Joe Lovano and Hill’s trailblazing Chicago peer Makaya McCraven.
Today, Hill maintains a nonstop touring schedule with the Blacktet, and the intensely interactive, utterly unique band has become a kind of graduate school for next-level talent—Hill included. “One of the most beautiful things about leading a group is the flow of knowledge and energy that we bounce off of one another,” he says. “Each member contributing their distinctive voice is what truly makes the music and magic happen.”
VIDEOS:
PREVIOUS ALBUMS:
PRESS:
“Marquis Hill has surrounded himself with (mostly) other Chicagoans in a kind of detonation of jazz as we think of it, and a reassembly of a new jazz in spirit, if not form.”
- Colin Fleming, Jazz Times
“My flow is rooted,” asserts the album’s first line, and it’s not just swagger. Modern Flows Vol. II moves as naturally among jazz, hip-hop and r&b as any album to date.
Michelle Mercer, Downbeat
“Together with Marquis Hill and his trumpet, New Jazz rises on the throne of modern mainstream.”
- Modern Jazz