Alexander Hawkins

Great - thanks! Yeah, Dylan's violin can do that

Just upping this in case anyone can be persuaded to listen - the broadcast starts in just under 40 minutes (listen online here) - and should then be available to listen for 7 days afterwards at the same link...please enjoy

Hi Bev - yes - thank you for plugging it! I'm really proud of the session...it'd be really great if anyone felt like checking it out. There's around an hour's music, and a short interview. And available on iPlayer for the remainder of the week!

Beautiful - thanks for sharing! I think that horn case in picture 1 is the exact same one he was carrying round up until the last...looks very much like the one I can picture him always turning up with!

A nice clip of Howard's trio...

Really gutted that Lol has gone...I never played with him at all regularly, but it was always an absolute honour to do so when it did happen. I did a number of freely improvised gigs with him, but probably my fondest memories are of a couple of gigs where we played standards...Lol had a sense of a tune like no-one else - he *knew* melody...a little bit like with Lacy (I don't mean to make a facile comparison simply based on the horn; and after all - Lol played plenty of others in earlier years) - he had a manner which was at once oblique and completely pared-down and direct. And a more down to earth guy you could not wish to meet. He's missed.

Now to freak you out - Veryan Weston lives in Welwyn

Wonderful group...the first time I ever played with Louis was when Evan asked me to sub in this group when Steve Beresford couldn't make a show...and in fact, I'd never even met him until that point, although I have the honour of doing a few things with him now...but that was some kind of baptism of fire!

Really sad. I never played with Abram, but had the pleasure of hanging out with him a couple of times fairly recently. Beside his playing, truly a nice guy - and (I can vouch because we shared a pupil) a complete inspiration as an educator.

I've never met David, but he's a friend of Hazel Miller and Ogun, certainly. He does the layout/design for them too I believe!

pm sent!

Thanks Clifford - really appreciate it!

Thanks for posting that!

Hmmm...not sure now! He sat in with John Edwards, Mark Sanders, and Shabaka Hutchings at Freedom of the City the other day, and has been on the road with NHAM (Tony Bevan, John Edwards, Michael Zerang), but I have a feeling that tour may have finished only last night...

Yep - Jeb's over here in the UK at the moment!

I've seen that trio (Haste) live a couple of times...Veryan/Hannah/Ingrid are a perfect set of foils. They also appear together in Sol6 and Sol12 - larger groups also featuring guys like Tony Buck and Luc Ex...some fun takes of unlikely material in those bands! Hannah is really a *wonderful* 'cellist...a completely fearless improviser. My personal first call on that instrument over here!

Hi everyone - thank you so much for all the birthday wishes - I'm flattered...it's been a fun day! Sure - and thank you for the interest ...so just officially released (but been around for a while now) is the new Ensemble recording... ...very proud to have a duo with Louis Moholo-Moholo appearing on Ogun in the Autumn - most likely (although tbc) September... ...Decoy is back - most likely for a November release - in quartet with Joe McPhee: this is a live recording, on vinyl! There is also another Convergence Quartet recording in the can...all mixed and ready to go, although we're just trying to pin down label details...but worth looking out for soon! And one or two sideman things too - so exciting times

I don't know the stuff at all, but I do know that Johnny Greenwood (Radiohead) works a lot with the Britten Sinfonia here in the UK...might be worth checking out, but I'm afraid I don't have any sense of what it sounds like

A very nice review of the gig also from the Guardian!

You're totally right - great guy. There's actually a new album from the quartet coming in late Autumn/early Winter...we don't do it often, but wow, I love playing with Joe! Actually - would be interesting to hear him play duo with Han! (Having said that, there aren't many people Joe wouldn't sound great with; or that Han wouldn't sound great with!)

Steve - wow, I'm flattered...could it have been Joe by any chance? I had the huge privilege of playing with him again last Sunday over in Berlin...as well as a master instrumentalist, genuinely one of the nicest people I have had the pleasure of meeting! Pete - in fact, no, although now you say so, I can see that! It's not a phrase borrowed from anything as such...just a habit I have of starting with an idea, then toying around with the wording until it 'sits' a certain way, by way of titling things from time to time! Although come to think of it, the title of the group's first record - 'no now is so' - is taken from someone else...

A slightly different tip, but Urban Blues, by Leroy Jenkins' Sting, is wonderful...great writing!

Thanks for the link! That's very kind of them

Thank you!

Just to say - if anyone is in London tomorrow night (Sunday 22nd), we launch the new Ensemble album at The Vortex...would be great to see anyone there!