Alexander Hawkins Ensemble - All There, Ever Out (Babel 2012)

The 30-year-old pianist Alexander Hawkins is the fastest emerging voice of his generation in the field of contemporary experimental UK jazz. Although he may be frequently bunched in with the various avant jazz/ improv scenes in this country, his music is beginning to also have more widespread appeal. Mentioned by four journalists in Jazzwise Magazine’s ‘who to look out for in 2010’ feature, word has spread of his various unique ensembles but none more so than this UK six piece. Featuring a young band of Otto Fischer on electric guitar, Hannah Marshall on cello, Dominic Lash on double bass, Javier Carmona on drums and percussion and the elder statesman of the crew Orphy Robinson on marimba, All There, Ever Out is the band’s second album, recorded for the Babel Label. The debut No Now is So was according to leading international archivist Francesco Martinelli in Point of Departure, “...one of the best discoveries of the Year” and Hawkins has also received plaudits for his Transatlantic Convergence Quartet (that also features bassist Lash as well as Anthony Braxton sideman Taylor Ho Bynum; the Hammond organ trio Decoy (‘redefines the words ‘shock and awe,’’ says Jazzwise); and for his stand out contributions to both Evan Parker’s trio through to the bands of Louis Moholo-Moholo and Mulatu Astatke.

On All There, Ever Out, Hawkins reveals how he is able to navigate between his free improvising spirit and a composer’s sense of architecture. As an artist he’s in a unique place: between the pre-bop traditions of Ellington and Tatum, through to Thelonious Monk and into the more ‘out there’ terrains of pioneering pianists-composers such as Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor. Add to that a wide spectrum of contemporary classical music, post-downtown New York jazz and underground rock that to create a fascinating brew that reveals an original artist who is thoroughly contemporary, but with a spirit and passion that’s entirely beyond the era of post-modern self- conscious irony.

“I think I’ve realized that having a stronger compositional voice doesn’t necessarily diminish the voice of the people playing the music…and in fact, that the opposite is sometimes true: that having a stronger compositional voice can showcase the individuality of the performers in a stronger light. I love the way that guys like Cecil, Wadada, Threadgill, Anthony Davis, Leroy Jenkins, Braxton, and Duke etc. have a compositional voice which is in many ways one and the same as their improvisational voice…” Throughout the recording, the ensemble acts as a palette of expansive light and shade, of fragments merging into unisons, the only concern being the expression of the whole. Hawkins also reveals some inspiring solo piano in the prelude to the track ‘Elmoic’, while on the track ‘AW/LJ’ Hawkins shows his creativity on B3 organ in a band serving up a Miles-like bitches brew punctuated by his splintered blues-driven organ grooves. Hawkins’ unique B3 organ playing has too been noticed, receiving an entry in the 75th Annual Downbeat Reader’s Poll in the organ category while also being named as, “the most interesting Hammond player of the last decade and more, [he] has already extended what can be done on the instrument.’ by the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD editor Brian Morton. (Babel Records)