Marquis Hill Blacktet

The first thing you note about trumpeter and composer Marquis Hill is his tone: warm, precise and so unlike the brittle winters in his hometown of Chicago. A winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2014, Hill has pursued performance and pedagogy in equal measure, releasing a string of intriguing recordings while fitting in teaching stints throughout the Midwest.

Hill’s longtime quintet, dubbed the Blacktet, provides the power and drive to underpin a font of melodic and rhythmic ideas that embrace hard bop, R&B, hip hop and soul.