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Alexander Hawkins
Born:
Alexander Hawkins is a composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader who is ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’ (Ni Kantu) and whose recent work has reached a ‘dazzling new apex’ (Downbeat). A largely self-taught improviser, he works in a vast array of creative contexts. His own highly distinctive soundworld is forged through the search to reconcile both his love of free improvisation and profound fascination with composition and structure. His writing has been said to represent ‘a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music’ (Point of Departure), and his voice one of the ‘most vividly distinctive...in modern jazz’ (The Jazzmann). As a pianist, he has been described as ‘remarkable...possessing staggering technical ability and a fecund imagination as both player and composer.’ Concerning his organ playing, critic Brian Morton recently commented that ‘[t]he most interesting Hammond player of the last decade and more, [Hawkins] has already extended what can be done on the instrument.’ He is a frequent solo performer, and also appears in groupings ranging from duo (with the likes of Evan Parker, John Surman, Han Bennink and Sofia Jernberg), via his co-led quartet with the vocalist Elaine Mitchener ('probably a new standard for improvised music with song', Jazzism), through to large ensembles ('Unit[e]...is a free-jazz masterpiece', Free Jazz). An in-demand sideman, Hawkins continues to be heard live and on record with vast array of contemporary leaders of all generations, including the likes of Evan Parker, John Surman, Joe McPhee, Mulatu Astatke, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Marshall Allen, Han Bennink, Hamid Drake, Rob Mazurek, Taylor Ho Bynum, Harris Eisenstadt, Matana Roberts, and Shabaka Hutchings, amongst many others
The Gleaming World
Label: 577 Records
Released: 2025
Track listing: When We Were Gods; Deer Antler Spray; Sugar Loaf Mountain; Whale Song; Dead Planet; The Gleaming World;
Sun Ghost; Tree.
All It Was
By Olie Brice
Label: West Hill Records
Released: 2025
Track listing: Listening Intently to Raptors; After A Break; Morning Mourning (for Tosh Brice); Happy Song
for Joni; A Rush of Memory Was All it Was; And We Dance on the Firm Earth.
Song Unconditional
Label: Intakt
Released: 2025
Track listing: Polyphonic Song; Her Heart Carries Gold to Match Her Eyes; Song of Infinite Variations;
Song Bewildered; Satin Antiphonal; Song Symmetrical; Two Trees Equal; Song of Balance;
Crinkle, Crinkle; Song of Work Still To Do; Song of Interdependence; Song in Orbit; Song of a
Quiet Ecstatic.
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders: Ecliptic
by Mark Corroto
Some books are divided into chapters--numbered, titled, and carefully structured. The musical equivalent is the tracklist: segmented, labeled pieces presented in order. But Ecliptic by the trio Shifa (شفاء, Arabic for “healing") rejects that format entirely. This 46-minute set of improvised music by saxophonist Rachel Musson, pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders unfolds without titles, ...
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. ...
Alexander 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 ...
Alexander 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 ...
Fabian Dudek, Dan Weiss, Jasper Hoiby & Mazam
by Maurice Hogue
German alto player Fabian Dudek's new This Every Place is an indication that Dudek's forming his own improvisational language, and his album is graced with the presence of Ingrid Laubrock. A definite must listen. There's a similar path followed by the Portuguese quartet, Mazam, on their new Pilgrimage Vol. 2. Drummer Dan Weiss' latest features a ...
Luke Stewart, Silvia Bolognesi & Alexander Hawkins
by Maurice Hogue
I confess to having a thing about basses, particularly of the acoustic kind, so I got all excited when the latest Luke Stewart album rolled in. About to do a gig with his Remembrance Quintet, he change course and combined musicians from his Silt Trio and the Quintet for a live gig which was recorded with ...
