Archive fever: Alexander Hawkins
A 2018 interview with the brilliant pianist, organist, composer and improviser.
This interview was conducted back in 2018 for the Counterflows Festival in Glasgow, where Alexander Hawkins collaborated with the great Nicole Mitchell and Tomeka Reid. Hawkins and Mitchell reunite this weekend for concerts at the Newcastle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music and Cafe Oto. While you’re here, check out a video interview I did with him for NFOJAIM.
One of the UK’s most radical pianists and composers, Alexander Hawkins combines avant-garde strategies and mind-boggling dexterity with a beautiful sense of harmony, rhythm and shape. He’s one of those artists who manages to synthesise diverse influences - jazz, classical, African, European - into his own sound world, blurring the boundaries between composition and improvisation in the process. His new solo album Iron Into Wind is a case in point, as he moves from avant-gospel and intricate classical motifs, to Sun Ra references and otherworldly impressionism. In addition to his solo and bandleader projects, the Oxford-based artist has collaborated with the likes of Louis Moholo-Moholo, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Elaine Mitchener, Han Bennink and Mulatu Astatke. Although he plays with Counterflows alumni Joe McPhee, John Stevens and Steve Noble in the organ trio Decoy, this is Hawkins’ first appearance at the festival. He’ll be performing solo, and in a trio with flutist Nicole Mitchell and cellist Tomeka Reid.
Can you tell us about your background: how you got into music, and what drew you to the piano?
I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a musical household. My parents weren't instrumentalists themselves, but there was always music - both classical music and jazz - on in the house. In fact, my earliest memory (other than that of getting lost in a supermarket one day) is of hearing the Duke Ellington tune 'Saturday Night Function'. As for the piano: there was an upright at home, so I think I gravitated towards it simply because of this. When I was at school, I also played the French horn for a while; and in fact my 'first study' keyboard instrument was the organ. But to cut a long story short, I think I slowly came to the realisation that if the organ was an instrument I liked, the piano was the instrument I loved, and so one day, simply didn't play the former again, and instead dedicated myself to the instrument I'd first started on. Since this time, it's true that I have very occasionally played organ concerts, and similarly perform from time to time on the Hammond organ, but other than this been piano all the way.
Other than piano lessons at school, you’ve avoided formal training. Why did you decide to take your particular route?
In some ways, this stemmed from nothing more than naivety on my part: something along the lines that none of my heroes had studied jazz 'formally', and so why would I want to? It's also true that institutionalised jazz education at that time was (and arguably continues to be, although I wouldn't want to be taken at face value here - the point needs expanding upon) extremely conservative; but I can't profess to having been aware of this at the time it came to consider tertiary education options. As for avoiding a classical music training after school: there was no conscious decision here, and I find the concept of classical music education at this higher level much less problematic than I do jazz education. I suppose I was lucky in having excellent teachers whilst growing up, so I had some grounding in how to go about developing technique at the instrument on my own, but I often think I would have enjoyed further study as part of a classical course. I'm happy that you qualified the question with '[o]ther than piano lessons at school', because I'm very self-conscious of the narrative that I'm 'self-taught'. It's true that there are various things I've figured out for myself, but I've benefitted hugely from a very early age from inspirational teachers: simply not within a tertiary institutional framework. Another reason for not taking music education further was simply that I also wanted to develop more broadly, and studying law (in the end through to a PhD) was part of trying to push myself in this respect - although of course during this time at University, I always had one eye on the reading lists of my friends studying music, to keep up to speed on various things along the way.
How did you begin playing improvised music? Were you involved with the local Oxford scene?
As I mentioned, I grew up with jazz, and so was a huge fan and listener from a very young age. In some senses, I did jazz 'chronologically', in that the very first things I heard were from earlier eras. The first pianists with whom I was familiar, for example, were the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, Teddy Wilson, Earl Hines, and my hero, Art Tatum. From here, I came to Charlie Parker, Monk, and so on; and through to musicians such as Cecil Taylor and Evan Parker. So when listening to the Cecil and Evan, gravitating towards the improvised music scene felt like a natural progression for someone looking for the progression of the jazz with which I'd grown up. I became friends with figures here in Oxford such as Pat Thomas and Pete McPhail, and as people straddling both the jazz and improvised music worlds (to the extent that these are separate - perhaps a different conversation), they were important and inspirational figures for me. I also became good friends with bassist Dominic Lash, who lived only a 10 minute walk away, and we used to spend a lot of time together figuring things out.
You’ve worked extensively with the great South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. How would you say he’s influenced you?
It's almost impossible to do Louis justice in a short answer: but amongst the many ways he's influenced me, perhaps I'd zero in on his attitude towards music making. He is instinctively a risk-taker: every single time, he will take the 50% chance of magic happening, over the 99% chance of producing something merely very good (for sure 'very good' and 'proficiency' are virtually ubiquitous, and I'm not sure these airwaves need crowding much more). An example might be the way he will repeatedly call the same tune on a gig - perhaps sometimes multiple times in the same set - just as a way of forcing things to happen; of requiring real improvising, rather than reproducing the rote patterns which are what we can often in fact be mining when we profess to be improvising. He is also a shining example of the fact that music should be a collective, communicative exercise, rather than something played by individuals: yet by the same token, that being communicative in no way precludes being difficult and searching; and being collectively-minded in no way precludes radically individual voices.
You play Hammond organ in Decoy. What’s your relationship with the instrument and its associated traditions in jazz?
I love the whole tradition of the organ trio, and have a bit of a collection of those records: Jimmy Smith, of course, but also others such as Big John Patton, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, Don Patterson, Freddie Roach, Groove Holmes, and possibly my favourite, Baby Face Willette (those records Face to Face and Stop and Listen on Blue Note...phew..!). In fact I think my Hammond organ fixation might have started with the Jimmy Smith record Live At Club Baby Grand, which, for all they're in the classic organ trio mould, also have an incredible headlong intensity, with almost a 'sheets of sound' approach reminiscent of the Coltrane of that period. But yes, moving on from this language, I of course love what Larry Young and Sun Ra do with the instrument. The thrill of the organ is not just in the very physicality of the amount of air it moves through the Leslie speaker, but also in the way you can humanise it: played in the right way, it's really possibly to make the instrument breathe, wheeze, moan, whistle and all sorts of things.
Your double album Unit[e] said goodbye to your ensemble with Shabaka Hutchings et al, and hello to a larger electro-acoustic group. Did you see the album as a way of bridging these different chapters?
Juxtaposing the two ensembles as part of a double album was definitely intended as a way of highlighting the similarities and differences between them. I really loved that sextet (and still do), but I wanted to experiment with various new ideas which had been nagging away at me. I'm fortunate enough to get to play with all of the musicians from the sextet in other contexts, and so it was somewhat easier to let it go that it would otherwise have been, since it was only surrendering a particular musical context, rather than a set of musical relationships. Working on the larger group material really helped me to clarify some ideas, and to suggest some further directions, and I've subsequently been busy working through a number of these - most recently, in a really exciting collaboration with Evan Parker and the Riot Ensemble which has just seen its first two performances.
You explore song in your quartet with Elaine Mitchener. Were there particular approaches that you took to opening up the material?
There wasn't necessarily a particular compositional concept behind the group: I think it started more from a real kinship in musical attitude which Elaine and I share. Elaine is a particularly gripping live performer, and so the more we've performed, the looser the whole group has become with the compositions: they now function as little more than jumping off points from which we can follow our improvisational instincts, because she is so compelling in the moment. Although the bulk of the compositions are my own, one aspect of the group which I enjoy is that we've never shied away from performing other people's music. I think it's testament to Elaine's individuality that she can personalise even a song such as Archie Shepp's 'Blasé'.
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Iron Into Wind is your second solo album after 2014’s Song Singular. What differences do you see between them? How has your solo music evolved?
I hope that my newer solo music is in some ways more 'sparing' than the earlier playing. I don't say this in any way to disparage the earlier record, because I'm extremely proud of it: but one aspect of my playing which I always used to be a little suspicious of (and hence disappointed in myself when I did perpetrate the wrong) was the tendency to 'do' because I 'could', rather than because it was essential to the music. I think this was little more than exuberance, but I think at times I was probably prone to overplaying. Increasingly, I feel that there is so much music out there, so much 'information' and 'noise' - which I'd broaden to include ideas such as the preponderance of social media and so forth - that this isn't something I want to add to unless I have something to say. In practice, I think this means more of a tendency in the solo playing to deal with repetition, and to mine single ideas for much longer than previously; not to shy away from virtuosity as such, but only to 'go there' if there was a strong musical idea organising the notes. I feel like this is more structured playing than before, although of course I'm wanting to remain open at all times to 'flow of things', to borrow a phrase from Roscoe Mitchell.
The title is a quotation from the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano – can you tell us about its significance to the music?
I'm a huge fan of Galeano's writing, and have Richard Williams to thank for introducing me to his work. For me, one of Galeano's greatest works is 'Soccer in Sun and Shadow', and this contains a chapter about the Basque former Real Sociedad goalkeeper, Eduardo Chillida. Chillida suffered a career-ending injury early on, and turned to sculpture after this. His works are both massive - often made of iron or stone - but also have a quality of lightness and movement. Galeano described him as the man who turned 'iron into wind', and this had a certain resonance for me with music and improvisation: I'm interested in working with strong materials, but which, being used live and in an improvised context, have a certain transience. The week before recording this album, I was playing in Amsterdam, and by chance happened to catch a temporary exhibition of Chillida's work in the gardens of the Rijksmuseum during a few hours off: so his work, and this phrase, somehow came to mind as we were working on this record.
You mention Mal Waldron and Janacek as key influences on the album – what links them in your mind?
What I think both share is this sense of parsimony with materials: a dogged, even bloody-minded, fixation with repetition. There is also this shared love of somehow 'massive' materials: think of Waldron's thick, dark, lower register ostinato patterns, which nevertheless always have remarkable clarity of purpose. Although neither is afraid of moments of amazing beauty (the final ten minutes or so of 'The Cunning Little Vixen' must be among the most radiant in all of music), they both sound pathologically incapable to me of sentimentality and self-indulgence; a shared quality which I think is particularly inspirational given the contemporary cultural climate. Both are utterly unmistakeable for anyone else, and even strange: yet in a completely unmannered way. They both seem to have a completely sui generis, unschooled, unorthodox manner, at the same time as exhibiting complete formal control.
Will your solo live performance draw on some of the material from Iron Into Wind or be something else altogether? How do you prepare for such sets?
I may well play some of the material from Iron Into Wind. In the same way that I've become increasingly interested in mining single ideas within passages of music, I'm also very interested in repeatedly attacking certain compositions, perhaps from very different angles, to see what else I can find in them. That said, I never go into a set with fixed ideas as to its shape: to go back to the question about Louis Moholo-Moholo, for example, one of the lessons I've certainly taken from him is the idea that the structures in the music should develop according to the context of the particular performance. So preparation to play for me consists perhaps predominantly of technical work, so that my fingers and ears can get to that space as quickly as possible where I'm not following my known patterns.
Are there any other projects on the horizon?
I've just completed a commission for Evan Parker, the Riot Ensemble, and myself: the music had its first two performances earlier this week, and I'm looking forward to studying the recording of that, trying to develop the work, and looking for some more opportunities for it. I'm also in the very early stages of sketching out some new music which I hope will make some interesting use of electronics: so perhaps that will be ready for road-testing in a few months' time. Beyond my own writing, I'm also hugely looking forward to some really varied concerts with a number of friends old and new in the coming months: Joe McPhee, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Michael Formanek, and many others.
I’m sure you’re excited to be playing with Tomeka Reid and Nicole Mitchell. What might we expect at Counterflows? And what else are you looking forward to at the festival?
Absolutely, I'm very excited at the prospect of this trio. I first played with Tomeka in a Taylor Ho Bynum quintet. We've subsequently played together in trio with Mike Reed, and I then had the pleasure of sitting in with the amazing string trio 'Hear in Now' - Tomeka, Mazz Swift, and Silvia Bolognesi. Each of these opportunities has been really great, and we've been talking for a while about finding another context in which to play together. I've not previously worked with Nicole, although I'm a huge fan of her playing. Nicole and Tomeka have a long relationship, and I hope that this mixture of familiarity and freshness within the group could lead to some really interesting music. So in terms of what to expect: I don't really know, and I feel that this definite fits squarely within the adventurous ethos of the Counterflows programming. There's so much else I'm hoping to catch at the festival: but just to throw one collaboration out there, the Aklama Makumba and the Ghana Footsteps show looks amazing...
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