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Jazz Articles about Alexander Hawkins
Olie Brice Quartet: All It Was
by Mark Corroto
Bassist Olie Brice wears the title of Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside with remarkable ease. Equally adept in free improvisation and structured composition, Brice moves fluidly between extremes. His work with improvisers such as Tobias Delius and Mark Sanders on Somersaults (Two Rivers, 2015), or with Paul Dunmall on The Laughing Stone (Confront, 2023), exemplifie his outside approach. Meanwhile, his release Fire Hills (West Hill, 2022), where he composed material for both trio and octet, showcases his talents on the more structured ...
Continue ReadingAlexander Hawkins: Song Unconditional
by John Sharpe
Where on the first solo outing by British pianist Alexander Hawkins, Song Singular (Babel, 2014), his influences strode in plain sight, and the second, Iron Into Wind (Intakt, 2019), in its austerity, nodded toward Hawkins' classical schooling, Song Unconditional feels simultaneously more personal and more welcoming. It finds Hawkins not only consolidating the vocabulary of his earlier output but distilling it into something strikingly self- assured. Since that initial unaccompanied foray, Hawkins has become one of the most ...
Continue ReadingAlexander Hawkins: Song Unconditional
by Mark Corroto
Heraclitus once said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." That may be true for most of us, but it does not quite apply to the music of pianist Alexander Hawkins. Despite navigating many musical rivers--trios, quartets, large ensembles, and collaborations with visionaries like Nicole Mitchell, Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton and Louis Moholo-Moholo --Hawkins remains unmistakably himself. His identity as an artist holds steady, even as ...
Continue ReadingStephen Davis Unit: The Gleaming World
by Ian Patterson
Belfast-based drummer-percussionist Stephen Davis' debut album for 577 Records takes its name from a line in a Seamus Heaney poem. The Irish Nobel laureate drew deeply on his rural surroundings, and, as these song titles suggest, so too has Davis. In late 2023, Davis spent time as a musician-in-residence at The Courthouse, Tinahely, in County Wicklow--an Improvised Music Company scheme that provides musicians with the support, time and space necessary to follow their artistic muse. Davis tapped into the natural ...
Continue ReadingAlexander Hawkins: Music as a Generous Space
by Giuseppe Segala
Born in Oxford in 1981, Alexander Hawkins is one of the leading musicians of his generation and a significant figure on the contemporary international scene. Personable and approachable, he is one of the few musicians of his age who engage meaningfully with the pioneering spirit of the African-American music tradition from the 1960s onward. His stylistic versatility, proficiency, exploratory mindset, and broad expertise in diverse approaches and languages make him a sought-after collaborator. His multifaceted artistic persona and ...
Continue ReadingAlexander Hawkins: La Musica è uno Spazio generoso
by Giuseppe Segala
Nato a Oxford nel 1981, Alexander Hawkins è musicista di punta della propria generazione e della scena contemporanea internazionale. Persona di grande disponibilità e affabilità, è tra i pochissimi musicisti che nella sua fascia di età si confrontano in modo congruo al temperamento dei pionieri che dagli anni Sessanta in poi si sono avvicendati sulla scena della musica afroamericana. È costantemente chiamato a collaborare da questi personaggi per la sua duttilità stilistica, per la preparazione, per l'attitudine a esplorare, per ...
Continue ReadingJazzfest Berlin 2024
by Giuseppe Segala
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Quasimodo Jazz Club, A-Train Jazz Club, Chiesa Monumentale Kaiser Wilhelm Jazzfest Berlin 2024 Berlino 31 ottobre--3 novembre 2024 Nel programma che celebrava il sessantesimo compleanno del Jazzfest Berlin, e che ne scandiva la sessantunesima edizione, non c'era solo musica. Ovvero, attorno al ricco e appetitoso programma di concerti, come sempre scaturiti dall'osservazione ad ampio raggio del panorama internazionale, si collocava una serie di eventi e appuntamenti che da un ...
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