In the Reader‘s coverage of this weekend’s Chicago Jazz Festival, John Corbett wrote a wonderful profile of trailblazing South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo, a founding member of the Blue Notes and the kind of versatile, curious percussionist that only comes along once or twice in a generation. His performance on Sunday with 5 Blokes is one of the festival sets I’m most excited about—not just because he’s talented and historically important, but also because every member of his band is terrific. The Blokes include reedist Jason Yarde and ferocious free-jazz bassist John Edwards, but I’m especially thrilled to see the Chicago debuts of pianist Alexander Hawkins and reedist Shabaka Hutchings, two of the most inspiring figures to emerge in British jazz in decades.
Unit[e] by Alexander HawkinsThe album featuring the larger band is also composition driven, but the wonderfully loose arrangements give the players more latitude. Each piece tends to build in open sections, and even it’s charted out, Hawkins lets his group personalize the writing with improvisation. The whole release is one of the most exciting, idea-packed albums of the year, and curious listeners would do well to make note of the musicians bringing it to life.
