Convergence Quartet (Bynum / Einsenstadt / Hawkins / Lash)

Song / Dance

Label: Clean Feed Country: Portugal

"The same ocean separating the Old Continent and the New World can join the musicians of both shores. From the United Kingdom, we find pianist Alexander Hawkins and bassist Dominic Lash. From Canada, but residing in New York, there's Harris Eisenstadt on drums, and from the USA here is Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet and flugelhorn. All of them are new, but already solid, revelations in the present creative music, and all of them are paving the roads which will take us to the future. Song/Dance is also in the frontier between two territories, once again justifying the name of this combo, The Convergence Quartet: "free jazz" and "free music" mix in ways never obvious and never predictable.

Hawkins' bio may be brief, but there are few improvisers who have had the chance to play with the greatest musicians of the British scene, like Evan Parker, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Lol Coxhill, and Mark Sanders; as well as names from further afield, such as Joe McPhee, Sonny Simmons and Mulatu Astatke. In parallel, he plays organ in weird funk and boogie-woogie bands. Lash is also a very flexible musician, with activities going from the most radical improvised music (with Evan Parker) to post-minimalism (with Tony Conrad) and to groove jazz (with Steve Reid). Eisenstadt, having appeared on more than 35 recordings in the last decade, is getting quite a reputation in the avant-jazz played in North America, both as a drummer and as a composer, applying the polyrhythmic patterns of Western African traditional music to his concept. Even a cursory glance at his formidable resume shows names ranging from Wadada Leo Smith and Sam Rivers to Phil Minton to Bernie Worrell. Bynum is now much more than a sideman for greats such as Anthony Braxton (where he first came to prominence), Cecil Taylor, and the like - he has developed a musical concept of his own, performative and written, forging a new urban music for the 21st century."-Clean Feed

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