Buck HIll, a local jazz legend, is dead at 90 (Photo courtesy of Severn Records)
Back in 2008, DCist was at Bohemian Caverns to cover the 10th anniversary celebration of trumpeter Thad Wilson‘s jazz orchestra. The evening’s highlight was Buck Hill‘s warm tenor sound. Hill was 80 years old at the time, and his age was definitely beginning to show.
“It’s past my bedtime,” Hill said during an interview that night. “It’s time for me to get out and let the young people have it.”
Dick Smith, the longtime force behind Jazz Night in Southwest, announced today via Facebook that Hill had passed at age 90. Though he only performed on occasion over the last several years, Hill’s shadow looms large. He was a legend within the local jazz community, and had a reputation that spread far beyond the District.
Born in 1927, Roger “Buck” Hill began playing the saxophone at age 13. In high school, he became acquainted with Jimmy Cobb, who would go on to play drums with Miles Davis on the seminal Kind Of Blue recording.
“We went and played the little gig and got five dollars, that’s how small the money was back then,” Cobb told DCist in 2012, recalling his first paid gig on which Hill played saxophone.
During the 1950s, he not only began performing and record with the great Charlie Byrd, but would also sit-in with luminaries such as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, and Davis as they rolled through town.
Rollins even referred to Hill as a “good friend of mine from those days” when we spoke to him in 2008.
Hill received offers to go on tour, but rejected them and instead took a job as a postman to provide a stable income for his family. Thus, the “Wailin’ Mailman” was the title conferred to him.
Though he stayed in the area, Hill was still a prolific performer and recording artist. He began his recording career as a bandleader in the 1970s and released over a dozen albums, with Relax (2006) being the most recent. He was also a favorite of Shirley Horn‘s, and recorded with her in the ’80s and ’90s.
Perhaps Hill’s most important impact on the local music scene came through his mentoring younger musicians. Many of the jazz musicians who came up through D.C.’s ranks during Hill’s most active years would cite him as a major influence.
Billy Hart, a respected drummer whose own career spans nearly 50 years, said it best during a 2013 interview with DCist.
“Buck Hill is my mentor, my teacher. He was my major inspiration. He’s the one that played me my first records,” he said.
