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Jazz Articles about Shabaka Hutchings
Alexander Hawkins / Mirror Canon: Break A Vase
by Mark Corroto
Pianist and composer Alexander Hawkins sequences the ten tracks of Break A Vase in a seemingly counterintuitive manner. The title track, which is taken from West Indian poet Derek Walcott's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, is not heard until track six; it is a solo piano performance which emulates Walcott's words, “Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole." Hawkins' solo performance on grand ...
Continue ReadingTomorrow’s Warriors: the Sound of London, Part 2
by Russell Perry
In the last hour, we explored the new London scene anchored by a broadly diverse set of players who share encouragement by the innovative educational group Tomorrow's Warriors. We featured music by Nubya Garcia, one of three tenor stars who are breaking out of the scene and in this hour we'll turn our attention to the other two, 37-year-old Shabaka Hutchings and 34-year-old Binker Golding—players, mentors, teachers and charismatic advocates for improvisational music.Playlist Host Intro 0:00 Zara McFarlane ...
Continue ReadingShabaka Hutchings: Black to the Future
by Chris May
Though he is far too modest to make any such claim himself, most observers agree that saxophonist and clarinetist Shabaka Hutchings is the standard-bearer for the new wave of jazz musicians who have emerged in London since around 2015. Hutchings is a few years older than most of the cohort. He made his debut recording in 2007 while still a student at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, on keyboard player Funsho Ogundipe's The Afrobeat Chronicles Vol. 2 (Flying ...
Continue ReadingSons of Kemet: Black To The Future
by Chris May
Sons Of Kemet is led by tenor saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Shabaka Hutchings who, though he is far too modest to make any such claim himself, is the de facto standard-bearer for the new wave of musicians who have emerged on the London jazz scene since around 2015. The band is one of three Hutchings either leads or co-leads which are signed to Impulse!. The other two are the cosmic-fusion trio The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & The Ancestors, ...
Continue ReadingA Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 8
by Ludovico Granvassu
The immuno-booster series is back. After all and, sadly, the pandemic is everything but over so our need for soothing and uplifting music is greater than ever. As usual, we've asked a number of prominent jazz musicians to share with our readers the music they rely for encouragement. For this instalment the selectors were Uri Caine, Paolo Fresu, Shabaka Hutchings, Phillip Johnston, Andrea Keller, Marie Krüttli, Hermon Mehari, Myra Melford, Matthieu Michel, Vanessa Perica, Sélène Saint-Aimé and Matt ...
Continue ReadingImpulse! Records: An Alternative Top 20 Zeitgeist Seizing Albums
by Chris May
There can be little argument that a jazz label ever captured a zeitgeist more completely than Impulse! did during its original 1960s incarnation. In the US, the fight back against white racism was cresting, opposition to the Vietnam war was growing, outrage over the assassinations of figures of hope such as President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X was boiling over, and inner cities were literally ablaze with protest. Impulse! entered this arena in 1961. For ...
Continue ReadingShabaka And The Ancestors: We Are Sent Here by History
by Karl Ackermann
Even as Shabaka Hutchings moves the evolution of jazz forward, We Are Sent Here By History laments the present-day conditions of conflict, suffering, parity, and the struggle to survive. The saxophonist's breakthrough album came with his Sons of Kemet on Your Queen Is A Reptile (Impulse! Records, 2018). He also leads the jazz/electronica hybrid The Comet Is Coming. Shabaka and the Ancestors' debut, Wisdom of Elders (Brownswood Recordings, 2016) essentially featured the same group of South African musicians, but here ...
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