Jazz Articles about Sylvia Hallett

About Sylvia Hallett

Album Review

Under the moniker Hymn, the British threesome of trumpeter Chris Dowding, violinist Sylvia Hallett and electronicist David Ross present extemporized slices of understated minimalism distinguished by aching melodies emerging from a granular scratchy undertow. They maintain a taut balance between repetition, movement and noise on three tracks recorded live in London and Norwich, with outcomes variously hypnotic, soothing and spacious. The title cut begins with the sort of hiss which could be distant traffic or waves breaking on ...

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Album Review

Sylvia Hallett / Mike Adcock: Reduced

by Nic Jones
October 9, 2010

The Spontaneous Music Ensemble lineup of drummer/cornetist John Stevens and soprano saxophonist Trevor Watts can, for countless reasons, serve as the template against which many another freely improvising duo can be gauged. That's an especially pertinent point with Reduced, as multi-instrumentalists Sylvia Hallett and Mike Adcock have fashioned a dialog every bit as rarefied as the one that Stevens and Watts created. Not even the highly residual influence of late period John Coltrane--that was, by a stretch of the imagination, ...

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Album Review

Sylvia Hallett: White Fog

by Glenn Astarita
October 1, 2001

Multi-instrumentalist, Sylvia Hallett turns to the bicycle wheel as a means of musical expressionism on this recording also featuring the artist’s utilization of digital delays, voice improvisation, and violin. Ms. Hallett’s resume includes involvement with the “London Musicians Collective,” British free jazz pioneers, saxophonist Lol Coxhill, vocalist Phil Minton and others, yet here she pursues shifting and at times, haunting pastiches of sound via her unorthodox implementations. With “A Wheelwright Used To Live Here,” Ms. Hallett’s use of bowed bicycle ...