Jazz Articles about Alex Ward

About Alex Ward

Album Review

Is there anyone else who doubles on clarinet and electric guitar? Multi-instrumentalist Eliot Sharp perhaps, but it is an otherwise fairly exclusive arena, one which Alex Ward has occupied since 1989 when he was already performing with Derek Bailey's Company at age 15. While the guitar remains his axe of choice for the rockier end of his activities, he wields both instruments in his free improv encounters and also in forays into jazz and contemporary music adjacent composition.

Album Review

Dominic Lash, Alex Ward: Antonyms

by John Sharpe
January 30, 2023

Can an album's contents be any less summed up by its title? While Antonyms suggests opposition, the collaboration between bassist Dominic Lash and clarinetist & guitarist Alex Ward evidences rather more empathy than contradiction. That is unsurprising given regular appearances in each other's bands as well as collective arenas going back at least to Barkingside (FMR, 2008). If the title is not referring to the principals, then perhaps it is the form of their encounters? Not really, as each brings ...

Album Review

Alex Ward: Gated

by Glenn Astarita
November 25, 2021

British multi-instrumentalist Alex Ward plays everything but the kitchen sink on this thrilling solo effort, where he plays guitar, woodwinds, keys, electric bass and uses various software-based mechanisms, including drums. Well-known as a free improviser, the artist fuses electro parts with peppery horns choruses, wily solos on several instruments, jumbling drum patterns and clamorous distortion-laced guitar riffs. Ward is an avant-garde sound designer via odd metrics, and geometrical configurations that pounce on you and deflect off walls at ...

Album Review

Dominic Lash Quartet: Limulus

by John Sharpe
August 26, 2021

The third outing from British bassist Dominic Lash's Quartet continues in the vein of its predecessors, Opabinia (Babellabel, 2013) and Extremophile (Iluso, 2017), in respect of its eclecticism, but if anything is even more cohesive and successful as a result. Lash's crew remains unchanged comprising Alex Ward on electric guitar, and the Spanish pairing of Ricardo Tejero on alto saxophone and Javier Carmona on drums. The album, presenting a 2019 live performance from north London's Cafe Oto, constitutes the inaugural ...

Album Review

Pascal Marzan Alex Ward: (VU)

by John Eyles
February 13, 2021

Although (VU) is the first album on which guitarist Pascal Marzan and clarinetist & guitarist Alex Ward have collaborated as a duo, it comes as no surprise as (until Covid-19) each of them was a well-established repeat visitor to the late, great John Russell's monthly Mopomoso improvised music sessions at London's Vortex. (The YouTube clip below shows Marzan and Ward performing there together, in 2015, in a trio with cellist Alice Eldridge). In 2017, they were both among the musicians ...

Multiple Reviews

Three very different sides of Alex Ward

by John Eyles
June 5, 2020

Having released his first album back in 1991--recorded when he was fifteen--clarinetist, saxophonist, guitarist, composer, improviser and band leader Alex Ward has kept up a steady and eclectic stream of releases ever since, averaging five a year since 2018. Among other things, he plays guitar, sings and co-writes the material in the duo Dead Days Beyond Help with drummer Jem Doulton, leads the bands Forebrace, Items 4 & 10, the Alex Ward Quintet and Sextet. Despite such productivity, Ward manages ...

Album Review

Alex Ward Item 10: Volition (Live at Café Oto)

Read "Volition (Live at Café Oto)" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
November 10, 2018

Although he was already a member of a lengthy list of ensembles, led by himself or others, when composer, improviser, clarinetist and guitarist Alex Ward put together his Item 10 band he had new ideas in mind; the ten musicians would be a pool from which ensembles of various sizes could be drawn for different musical ends. In choosing the personnel of past groups Ward has shown an excellent knowledge of the players at his disposal from different backgrounds and ...