Second, Decoy and Joe McPhee will be making a first foray into Europe in April, when we’ll be appearing at a special event at Ausland in Berlin…here’s the type of mischief we get up to. Watch out also for a new album – we have some blistering material in the can from a residency at Cafe Oto last year…it’ll be an exciting one…

All About Jazz
Bebop Spoken Here
Moving Tone

[Bebop Spoken Here kindly also reviewed a duo show Harris and I did at Newcastle University whilst on the road with the quartet.]

Please do watch this space for news of our third album. I was in the studio yesterday on mixing duties, and have to say I’m chuffed with how it’s sounding. I really feel that this tour produced our best music yet…great playing and composing from all concerned..!

Here’s what he had to say:

English keyboardist and improvising composer Alexander Hawkins is fast proving to be one of the most unique voices in contemporary music, a young master for whom terms like “free improvisation” and “avant-garde” don’t exactly cut the mustard. His work in the bi-continental Convergence Quartet and the rugged organ trio Decoy would have put him on the modern creative music map by themselves, but it’s in the elegantly cooperative Alexander Hawkins Ensemble that his work really stands out. The instrumentation is curious – piano, marimba, guitar, cello, bass and drums – but utterly gimmick-free. One gets the feeling that the Ensemble’s collective voice and the structure that arises straddle two poles – that the player’s personality stands ahead of instrumental specifics and the particular sound of these instruments (together and in opposition) is extremely important to the overall work. All In, Ever Out is the group’s second disc (following the 2009 standout No, Now Is So on FMR) and joins Hawkins with guitarist Otto Fischer, drummer Javier Carmona, cellist Hannah Marshall, bassist Dominic Lash and Orphy Robinson on marimba for nine compositions, all of which are originals. This is somewhat of a departure from other discs, which have featured highly personal interpretations of Sun Ra, Wadada Leo Smith, and South African township jazz alongside Hawkins’ own pieces.

“Ologbo (double trio)” may take its title from a Nigerian township, but following the initial bass-cello duet, its theme (primarily voiced by guitar and piano) has more in common with the erudite, Monkish swing of the Attila Zoller-Don Friedman group. The ensuing improvisation adds Robinson’s resonant wooden cascades to the strings’ pizzicato surge, as flourishes of cymbals, electric guitar and piano gradually pile on. Fleet, dry fire from Carmona’s kit prods the twined inversions of Fischer and Hawkins in another brief and exceptionally busy trio before the ensemble, ragged and right, takes the tune home. “Tatum Totem III” follows, independent jaunt and overlapping parallel blocks drawing together as choppy improvisational currents that, while they relate to and inform one another, reflect the individuality of their contours as much as they do an overarching scheme. It’s not something that, on the surface, would seem all that unique in improvised music but the way it’s scored among these six musicians is a resounding collar grab. The penchant for parallel commentary seems almost lackadaisical in “Owl (Friendly)/A Star Explodes 10,000 Years Ago, Seen By Chinese Astronomers” as a delicate, short phrase and its refrain are teased out and elaborated upon in gently wheeling mingle and Marshall’s deep, lithe cello is front and center with tousled romance.

“Ahab” is boisterously resolute in its seaworthiness, a slightly out-of-tempo orchestral jounce in the head that gives way to the staggering, Schlippenbach-Lovens interplay of the pianist and drummer as Lash motors along underneath. Fleshed out by the rest of the ensemble, bass, cello and piano kick and chomp towards a regal conclusion. “Elmoic” could take its title from a Paul Rutherford piece; its first two and a half minutes are given over to the leader’s kaleidoscopic unaccompanied piano before the ensemble enters in a circular dance, anthemic downstrokes countering a series of short, florid solos. Hawkins tends to subsume his own highly virtuosic playing to the greater good of collectivity, so it is fascinating to hear him step out front on this piece. The closing “So Very, Know” is as striking in its somberness as other compositions are exhortations of joy, sparsely-drawn harmonics a padding for the guitarist’s flourishes and Hawkins’ gospelized but oddly unresolved piano. All In, Ever Out is unlike anything else in modern creative music and, while it may be produced under nominal leadership, it’s a testament to mutual selflessness and a trust in convergent personalities. That is, after all, what our music is rooted in.

Even if you disagree and think the album is lousy, please do check out the blog: there’s always some great writing on there, often about very neglected figure – highly recommended

I was recently kindly asked by Point of Departure to answer some questions for their ‘Travellin’ Light’ column – basically, 20 questions about life of the road…do check it out here!

Even if you ignore this feature, however, I know I’ve said it before – please do check out this publication – there’s always some really fantastic writing in there (n.b. that past issues are also archived).

Very excited about this – and it’ll be UK audiences’ first chance to hear the band since the release of our Clean Feed album, ‘Song/Dance’.

We’re very pleased to have been granted a short residency at the Dartington Arts Space, so that we can really develop the new material before hitting the road. We’ll be playing the following venues:

7/11 – Dartington Hall
9/11 – Cambridge, Churchill College Recital Room
10/11 – Eisenstadt/Hawkins duo – Newcastle University (lunchtime)
10/11 – [Quartet] Newcastle, Literary and Philosophical Society
11/11 – Leeds University (lunchtime)
12/11 – Reading, Rising Sun Arts Centre
13/11 – London, Vortex Jazz Club – London Jazz Festival

…we’re looking forward to seeing you out and about!

I’m really pleased to say that, after a hold-up at the pressing plant, the new Ensemble album is NOW AVAILABLE!

The lineup is as for the previous album:

Javier Carmona, drums
Otto Fischer, guitar
Dominic Lash, double bass
Hannah Marshall, ‘cello
Orphy Robinson, marimba
yours truly, piano, compositions

…the only differences being that on one track, I play Hammond B3; on a further track, we are joined by Kit Downes on Hammond; and that Orphy Robinson plays marimba here, rather than steel pans (purely a quirk of my programming choices – he played some lovely pans on the session – the tracks just didn’t ’sit’ in the sequence!).

As it’s hot off the press, I’m afraid I can’t tempt with any juicy quotes yet(!), but if you liked the first one, I hope you may even like this one more – I’m really delighted with how it turned out, and I feel the band identity comes through even stronger this time around…in the meantime, here are two tasters if you’d like to listen:

Ahab
and
Tatum Totem III

Copies will shortly be available via the Babel website, and are also available immediately from me – please just contact me at alexander [at] alexanderhawkins [dot] com

The price is £10+pp.

I also have limited quantities of the first album available; if you would like one of these at £8+pp, please drop me a line.

…and – special offer time – let’s call it £18, to include shipping, for both…

Very excited to announce a two-day residency for Decoy & Joe McPhee at Cafe Oto on Saturday October 29 and Sunday October 30. Above is some of what we got up to at the first meeting of this group, in December 2009. That was released on this album…

And for the curious, some more audio from that gig…