Hot rising tenor sax player & quartet is presented here in an organ context w. veteran Melvin Rhyne that transcends the traditional organ-tenor session w. a sensitive & swinging modern presentation, joined by Bobby Broom-guitar, Joe Farnsworth-drums.
Alexander Hawkins is a creative epicentre from the London jazz scene and is regarded in the UK as one of the most innovative musicians of the younger generation with a surprising radius of action. He plays with Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Taylor Ho Bynum, Louis Moholo, Shabaka Hutchings and Elaine Mitchener. 'Iron into Wind' is the name of his new piano solo. The phrase "Iron into Wind" evokes for him both the transience of improvisation and a fascination with solid material, represented by the powerful blocks of sound to be heard in several of these pieces. Richard Willimas writes in the liner notes: "The mood varies from the two-handed avant-gospel figurations of "Congregational" to the hurtling "Etude" via the austere ruminations of "Tumble Mono", the knotted blues of "Strange Courage" and the explosive accelerations of "It Should Be a Song", with a diversion, in "Pleasant Constellation", by way of variations on an element from Sun Ra's "Fate in a Pleasant Mood". What he achieves here is a fine balance of all his interests, creating a self-portrait of a wonderfully inventive modern musician."
After the album "Togetherness Music", British pianist and composer Alexander Hawkins presents another musical panorama: An ensemble in which his trio with bassist Neil Charles and drummer Stephen Davis meets saxophonist and clarinetist Shabaka Hutchings, guitarist Otto Fischer, and drummer Richard Olatunde Baker. For anybody who has followed Hawkins's work since his emergence on the British improvised music scene in the mid 2000's this is a fresh band full of familiar musicians with whom Hawkins has played in a wide variety of formations. The new pieces "Break a Vase" presents emerge from Hawkins' own imagination, but they also capture the thrust of energy in collaborating with these outstanding musicians. "Hawkins gives one of his most complete performances to date," writes Kevin Le Gendre in the liner notes. "Nothing is perhaps more majestic than the title track, which comes from Derek Walcott's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. 'Break a Vase, and the love that re - assembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took it's symmetry for granted when it was whole.' Enjoy then all these wily bits and pieces that come together in the kind of daring, courageous construction that is made to last."
The Schlippenbach Trio has worked together as a unit for around forty-five (!) years. Their magic chemistry is founded on intuitive listening and interaction - the ability to respond in an instant - and on the match between their characters, each adding to the whole as well as challenging each other - a stroke of fortune. The spectrum of performances on "Features" covers a range from furor to elegy. It extends from energetic, forward-thrusting pieces via cool, calm, ambling passages and ballad moods to submersion in sound, in silence. (Excerpt from Bert Noglik's liner notes)
Sofia Jernberg and Alexander Hawkins are among the most multifaceted and expressive musical personalities with a surprising radius of action. Swedish singer Sofia Jernberg explores the boundaries of vocal technique in a variety of creative contexts, ranging from Schonberg's Pierrot Lunaire to Mats Gustafsson's Fire! Orchestra. Alexander Hawkins is often described as unrivaled in modern creative music and is considered one of it's most innovative and imaginative pianists and composers. In the duo, traditional songs from Ethiopia, Armenia, Sweden and elsewhere become the starting point for the development of an exciting and very personal sound world. David Toop writes in the liner notes: "Where is home, where is return for the scattered? Soft and crystalline, a music of edges, silence and tangential shoots, Musho dwells in these questions, invites the listener to consider displacement, migration, identity, responsibility, bloody history, the seepage of culture and community, but more than that, invites listening." Musho is predictably a fantastic work of contemporary music.
British pianist and composer Alexander Hawkins is a creative epicenter of the London jazz scene and is regarded as one of the most innovative musicians with a surprising radius of action. His trio with Neil Charles and Stephen Davis was formed in 2012 and masterfully celebrates the connection of freedom and structure, composition and improvisation. Carnival Celestial is a fantastic work of musical presence and impressively proves what is possible with piano, bass and drums - one of the more convention-laden formats in jazz practice. "Hawkins, Charles, and Davis clearly have moved the piano trio forward and stretched it's conceptual horizons with Carnival Celestial, and in doing so, they have contributed to it's ongoing vitality," writes Bill Shoemaker in the liner notes.
Both critically acclaimed and the best-selling newly recorded album for Delmark in recent times, 2012's Been There Done That put Linsey Alexander in the blues spotlight. "Throughout Alexander sings with a conviction and verve that few can equal. This should be his breakout recording." Gary von Tersch, Big City Rhythm & Blues Similar to the first album, Come Back Baby is full of delightful new originals including "Little Bit of Soap", "Booty Call", "Call My Wife", "Things Done Changed", "Too Old To Be A New Fool" and the title track. Once again Linsey led his nine-piece band live in the studio with special guest Billy Branch on harmonica.
Linsey Alexander is a classic Bluesman, and these performances come from a live show at a the legendary Chicago Blues club, Rosa's Lounge. Continuing the Delmark legacy of great live recordings, this album will give Linsey the respect he deserves as an artist and mentor to many younger musicians.
A review of Linsey Alexander's previous album Come Back Baby (DMK 838) in Living Blues magazine called it "a can't-miss release for any lover of no-nonsense Chicago blues". The "Hoochie Man" is back with all original material including the new smash Two Cats! "My woman got two cats, one in the front, the other in the back!" From the searing "Where Did You Take Your Clothes Off Last Night" to the tender "Til I Kissed You", from the comedic "Facebook Woman" to the political "Comb Over Blues" Linsey weaves his colorful stories throughout this album of blues, soul, R&B and funk. It's great fun and serious music at the same time. 'Cause the blues don't mess around and neither does Linsey.
Bluesman Linsey Alexander was born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. His first guitar was never retrieved from the pawn shop where he left it almost 50 years ago. Using the money to help pay his way to Chicago, he now has a variety of guitars. Linsey has played with B.B. King, Bobby Rush, Buddy Guy, Little Milton, Magic Slim Johnnie Taylor, Larry McCray, A. C. Reed, Byther Smith, John Primer, Otis Clay and Eddie Clearwater. Been There Done That is Linsey's Delmark debut and it features an eight piece band including the LA Horns plus special guest Billy Branch on harmonica. Lots of brand new original songs brought to life by Linsey's powerful vocals.
As difficult times often beget new beginnings, the COVID-19 quagmire gave birth to alto saxophonist Eric Alexander. To some, a tenor-to-alto switch may not seem to be a newsworthy matter, but for the initiated it's the stuff of headlines. An inveterate tenor at the apex of the scene for more than three decades, Eric put the alto away in his teen years and never looked back. "But with the dearth of opportunities to play during the pandemic, I started to work on it," he confesses. After successfully pitching the idea of using his second saxophone-with-strings project as a debut on alto, the present recording is quite simply astounding. Working with his regular rhythm section and adding ace string arrangements, this altoist delivers one revelatory performance after another.
Tenor Saxman Eric Alexander has more than lived up to his Young Lion hype. Last year he released his amazing 18th recording as leader for HighNote, IT'S ALL IN THE GAME. It only reinforces what has been clear from his work of the past decade, Alexander is one of the leading talents of modern tenor saxophone. Eric and his working band explore a wealth of material, finding treasures and mining each gem without getting tedious, varying his strategies from fluttering wisps, meaty arpeggios and evocative swirls.
For his latest HighNote release, Eric Alexander is once again in the Rudy Van Gelder studio with his long-time collaborators Harold Mabern, Joe Farnsworth and Nat Reeves for a program of originals, standards and not-so-standards delivered with the prerequisite imagination and daring that has made Eric Alexander a place among the elite jazzmen of today.
