ALEXANDER HAWKINS TRIO

'Sounds like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details' (The Guardian)

Alexander Hawkins is a pianist, organist, composer and bandleader who is ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’ (Ni Kantu) and whose recent work has reached a ‘dazzling new apex’ (Downbeat).

Self-taught, he works in a vast array of creative contexts. His own highly distinctive soundworld is forged through the search to reconcile both his love of free improvisation and profound fascination with composition and structure. In 2012, he featured on the official ballot for the 75th Annual Downbeat Reader’s Poll in the organ category (as he had in 2010). The journal El Intruso voted him #1 in the keyboard category, and #5 in the piano category, in its 2010 poll; he also placed #4 in the keyboard category in 2011, and at #2 in 2012. His albums have for several years regularly featured in critics’ ‘end of year’ lists.

Alongside his work as a bandleader, he regularly appears live and on record with many iconic figures of the music, including Louis Moholo-Moholo, Mulatu Astatke, and Joe McPhee. Other credits include Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Sonny Simmons, and Marshall Allen. He is also a collaborator in the Convergence Quartet with two important peers from the North American creative music scene – Taylor Ho Bynum and Harris Eisenstadt.

He is increasingly also known for his writing, and in 2012 was chosen as a member of the first edition of the London Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Soundhub’ scheme for young composers. He was also recently commissioned by the BBC for a major 50-minute work, for broadcast in March 2013.

His Ensemble has been called 'one of the most distinctive in modern jazz' (The Jazzmann), and his trio features Hawkins alongside two musicians with whom he has built up a striking rapport in recent times in the context of this, and other, groups: Neil Charles (double bass) and Tom Skinner (drums).

Neil Charles is one of the most in-demand musicians on the scene, with a huge array of credits to his name, including the groups of Jack DeJohnette, Byron Wallen, Jose James, Jerry Dammers, Courtney Pine, and Terence Blanchard. As well as being known as a bass player with a huge sound and immaculate sense of time, he is equally renowned as a producer, and has worked with many major labels.

Similarly respected and sought-after, Tom Skinner has been a mainstay of the scene since his first professional jobs at age 13. In this time, he has featured in countless high profile groups, including the Jazz Warriors, the Denys Baptiste Quartet, Byron Wallen’s Indigo, Jade Fox, and most recently, groups such as Shabaka and the Sons of Kemet, and The Owiny Sigoma Band. His also leads his own Hello Skinny project.