Doors 7:45 PM, Music 8:30 PM – 2 set(s) of music
Line-up:
Alexander Hawkins – Piano
Neil Charles – Double bass
Stephen Davis – Drums
About
Sounds like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details’ – The Guardian
The Alexander Hawkins trio comes to the Vortex Jazz Club for the final concert of a short European tour marking the release of ‘Carnival Celestial’ – Hawkins’ seventh release on Intakt Records, and the second from his trio, following their eponymous 2015 debut.
Hawkins is widely recognised as among the most innovative pianists, composers and thinkers of his generation, and is heard in contexts ranging from solo concerts through to large-scale commissioned works. His idiosyncratic language and musical open-mindedness have also seen him collaborate with a vast range of leading musicians from across the generations, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, Joe McPhee, Sofia Jernberg, Esperanza Spalding, Johnny Greenwood, Mulatu Astatke, and many others.
Neil Charles is a bass player, producer and composer, who performs and records with a huge array of artists. His credits include work with the likes of the Sun Ra Arkestra, Mingus Big Band, Terence Blanchard, Anthony Braxton, John Surman, Shabaka Hutchings, and Gabriels.
Stephen Davis is a Belfast-based drummer, working internationally across the spectrum of jazz and improvised music. Initially coming to prominence to UK listeners as one third of the trio Bourne/Davis/Kane, he has also worked with the likes of Anthony Braxton, Marc Ribot, John Taylor, Rufus Reid, Van Morrison, Kris Davis, and Django Bates.
Together for more than a decade, the trio has performed in the USA, Canada, and throughout Europe. Hawkins, Charles and Davis were last heard together in London during a three-night stand which formed part of a celebrated European tour by the Anthony Braxton Standards Quartet, and which yielded the monumental 13CD live set released as ‘Quartet (Standards) 2020′. They have also been heard in quartets with Elaine Mitchener and John Surman, as well as at the heart of Hawkins’ ‘Mirror Canon’ sextet (also featuring Richard Olatunde Baker, Otto Fischer, and Shabaka Hutchings), which in 2022 released the acclaimed album ‘Break A Vase’.
Their unique chemistry is heard in a special way in the trio context, however, in compositions which are both often rigorously structured, and at the same time volatile and shape-shifting.