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Letters From Afar

Alex Hitchcock

Label: New Soil
Released: 2025
Duration: 45:15
Views: 169

Tracks

1. Yellow Greens; 2. Wishbone; 3. Eo; 4. Invisible Beasts; 5. Bright White Light; 6. Banshees; 7. 41; 8. Rio (Live At Bimhuis)

Personnel

Album Description

Recorded in New York with some of the brightest lights on the city's jazz scene, Letters From Afar is an urgent transatlantic set. Comprised of eight stunning original compositions, the album captures the tenorist's evolving relationship with the roots of jazz in the US—particularly its creative heart in New York—while reflecting a distinctive musical voice shaped by his British upbringing. Of the forthcoming album Letters From Afar, Hitchcock explains: "I wanted to make an album specifically in New York and engage with the music being made here, because as a white British musician playing Black American music, engaging with the context in which that music is made is important... I wanted to make a record that recognises the influence of New York on my music, but that also has the confidence to offer something that's my own and that I can contribute, which is a product of the UK, where I've grown up. The title 'Letters from Afar' tries to capture the tension in the push and pull of these different information flows: receiving musical influence from the US... and taking that back to my work in the UK and Europe." Letters From Afar documents Hitchcock's period of working, living, and playing in New York. Over the last few years, he has immersed himself in the intense private sessions and workshops that define the city’s contemporary jazz practice — performing and leading bands at venues like the cult musician-run club Close Up on the Lower East Side. He has played with rising talents including Dabin Ryu, Alexandra Ridout, David Adewumi, and David Sirkis, and has performed with his own band at prestigious festivals such as the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Written during an intense period of maintaining community across two continents — a time Hitchcock describes as an “ephemeral way of life,” where “the lack of rootedness can create a feeling of possibility but also makes you question identity.” The album’s eight tracks were largely captured in first takes, following extensive road-testing during a European tour that allowed the band to develop an intuitive chemistry with the material. The result is a collaboration with Harish Raghavan on bass (Ambrose Akinmusire's quartet), trumpeter David Adewumi (who also appeared on Hitchcock's 2021 album Dream Band), Lex Korten on piano (frequent collaborator of Tyshawn Sorey), and Jongkuk Kim on drums (Aaron Parks’s 2024 Blue Note date Little Big III). Together, they shape an album that weaves intricate modal harmonies and dynamic exchanges through shadowy, melodramatic moments and expansive passages of soaring euphoria — with expressive solos from a virtuoso cast serving as emotional bridges throughout. These tunes open compelling spaces for the quintet to explore, with interplay between the five players marked by deep listening and careful response. Drawing on influences from Coleman Hawkins and Wayne Shorter to contemporary voices like Ambrose Akinmusire and Tyshawn Sorey, Hitchcock’s music crackles with inventive freshness and bold imagination. A fierce commitment to progression and originality defines the musical world Hitchcock has immersed himself in during his time in New York. ‘I don't know if it's so much a contrast with the way things are done in the UK or just because I was at a different stage in my career in the UK than I am here,’ he says, ‘but I do notice here that it's never really questioned why you would bother doing a bar gig for $50 or, like, why you would trek for an hour in the rain to do a session in the middle of the day. It's just like – well, yeah, of course we do that, because we're all working on our thing, and we want to make it really good.’ Many jazz players from the UK have visited and played in New York, but precious few have spent long periods of time there and cut music to tape with the best of their American contemporaries (Kenny Wheeler, Dizzy Reece and Dave Holland are some of the few). Letters From Afar marks one the rare occasions when a musical sensibility developed within the British jazz experience has had a chance to reconnect with cutting edge music being made at the source. ‘I also have my own thing as a product of where I'm from, and something that I can contribute as a person that has come from London,’ Hitchcock says. ‘Spending time in New York has made me more confident in that respect.’ Letters From Afar is proof positive that this confidence is well-founded.

Album uploaded by Nicole Mckenzie