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At this point in his career, Oxford-born pianist, organist and composer Alexander Hawkins really needs little introduction. A virtuosic improviser who can draw on seemingly infinite musical frame of reference, each of his half dozen or so recordings for the [...]
If the title of this, the debut album by the quartet of London-based saxophonist Sam Norris, suggests that the listener should approach the music with a degree of patience, that wouldn’t begin to reveal the full complexity of the conceit. [...]
The music of Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala can sometimes be difficult to place within the canon. Equally at home tearing it up in a small intimate jazz club as performing with an orchestra in a prestigious concert hall, he will [...]
The Leipzig-based trio of Olga Reznichenko (piano), Lorenz Heigenhuber (bass) and Maximilian Stadtfeld (drums) turned my head with their wonderfully nuanced 2022 debut Somnambule (Traumton). Conceived as a series of imaginary dream sequences, the classically leaning and melodically rich music [...]
In his sleeve notes to this, the second album by Swiss super-trio Helveticus, Manfred Papst wryly observes that the three musicians “could be grandfather, father and son”. In terms of their ages they are indeed separated by several generations, but [...]
There’s something about the career path of Munich-based saxophonist Moritz Stahl which speaks both to his great musical curiosity and patience. Gaining valuable experience as a member of the techno-influenced Jazzrausch Bigband, Stahl is also a regular collaborator with close [...]
From Loose Tubes, Perfect Houseplants and Polar Bear to session work with Prefab Sprout, Robert Wyatt and Radiohead, saxophonist Mark Lockheart has been at the centre of British music for four decades. Now a mainstay of the Edition Records stable, [...]
Amongst the many revealing insights in LJN’s recent interview with Fulvio Sigurtà (trumpet, flugelhorn/ link below) were his reflections on Wayne Shorter’s last great quartet (“the quintessence of risk, and therefore the quintessence of trust”). Sigurtà’s affection for the London [...]
Originally from Chicago and a former student of the AACM’s Mwata Bowden, Brooklyn-based baritone saxophonist and flautist Jonah Parzen-Johnson is a rare specialist in that most challenging of disciplines, the solo recital. Over the last decade or so he has [...]
