The Squid's Ear Magazine
Vinyl Cost Sale! June 27-29, 90 Albums @ Squidco's Cost



Hawkins, Alexander / Tomeka Reid : Shards & Constellations (Intakt)

With intricate interplay and textural passages, Chicago improvising cellist Tomeka Reid and UK pianist Alexander Hawkins present their first collaboration, an exciting set of rapid interchanges of pointillistic playing and introspective playfullness, 9 collective dialogs alongside Leroy Jenkin's piece for "Albert Ayler (His Life Was Too Short)".
 

Price: $17.95


Quantity:

Out of Stock

Quantity in Basket: None

Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 5.00 units

Sample The Album:





product information:

Personnel:



Alexander Hawkins-piano

Tomeka Reid-cello


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 7640120193447

Label: Intakt
Catalog ID: ITK344
Squidco Product Code: 29256

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at Challow Park Studios, in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, on April 13th, 2019, by Will Biggs.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Shards and Constellations presents duets with two remarkable musicians Tomeka Reid and Alexander Hawkins. Both have become creative epicenters in the jazz and improvisation scene in recent years with their original, versatile and innovative art. Reid has recorded extensively with many legendary artists from the AACM such as Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell as well as the next generation of AACM artists including Nicole Mitchell, Dee Alexander and Mike Reed.

Hawkins is a composer and pianist from the London jazz scene and is regarded in the UK as one of the most innovative musicians of the younger generation with a surprising radius of action. His work attempts to reconcile both his love of free improvisation and his infatuation with composition and structure.

Five of the compositions are collectively conceived with intricate textures and interplay. Two of the pieces feature works by two masters from the first generation of the AACM - Muhal Richard Abrams and Leroy Jenkins. "Shards and Constellations is asingular achievement exploring a broad spectrum of musical avenues from the lyrical to the pointillistic, from the angular to the serene. This adventurous music deserves to be heard," writes Anthony Davis in the liner notes."-Intakt



"The first recorded collaboration between British polymath pianist Alexander Hawkins and the versatile American cellist Tomeka Reid reveals a natural rapport that takes multiple shapes. Eight of the recording's ten tracks are free improvisations, most of them focusing on refined dialogues rife with extended techniques, subtle textural shifts and quicksilver responses. The opener 'If Becomes Is' finds Reid initially producing brittle, wandering pizz figures that gradually morph into an elusive rhythmic thrum in sync with Hawkins' patient organisation of pointillistic notes into fitful, cycling patterns. The pianist summons the sound of early free jazz piano on 'Danced Together', with a jagged left hand chordal runs intersected by the cellist's toggle of clean walking lines and dissonant, plucked note clusters. The duo seems to be of a single mind, together finding a pathway, whether abstract or linear, regardless of how far apart them might appear at the beginning of each piece, but that connection never opts for the glib or predictable. They also imaginatively essay a couple of tunes from the AACM songbook.-the lyrically yearning 'Peace On You' by Muhal Richard Abrams and the elegantly pastoral 'Albert Ayler (His Life Was Too Short)' by Leroy Jenkins-a repertoire of great importance for both musicians."-Peter Margasak, The Quietus


Get additional information at The Quietus

Artist Biographies

"Alexander Hawkins is a composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader who is 'unlike anything else in modern creative music' (Ni Kantu) and whose recent work has reached a 'dazzling new apex' (Downbeat). A largely self-taught improviser, 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 was chosen as a member of the first edition of the London Symphony Orchestra's 'Soundhub' scheme for young composers. He also received a major BBC commission in late 2012 for a fifty minute composition: One Tree Found was first performed and broadcast in March 2013, and was subsequently performed and broadcast for the WDR in Cologne (2014). He has also twice been commissioned by the London Jazz Festival (once as composer, once as an arranger), and by the Cheltenham Jazz Festival (2016).

An in-demand sideman, Hawkins continues to be heard live and on record with vast array of contemporary leaders of all generations, including the likes of Evan Parker, John Surman, Joe McPhee, Mulatu Astatke, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Marshall Allen, Rob Mazurek, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Harris Eisenstadt, amongst many others. He has also been noted in recent years for his performances in the bands of legendary South African drummer, Louis Moholo-Moholo. Concert appearances have taken him to club, concert and festival stages worldwide."

-Alexander Hawkins Website (http://www.alexanderhawkinsmusic.com/biographyimages.html)
6/25/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Chicago based cellist, composer and educator, Tomeka Reid has been described as "a remarkably versatile player," (Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune). Equally adept in classical and jazz contexts, Ms. Reid predominantly finds herself in experimental and improvisatory settings and composes for a wide range of instrumentation, from big band to chamber ensemble. Ms. Reid's music combines her love for groove along with freer concepts.

Ms. Reid is an integral part of Dee Alexander's Evolution Ensemble, Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble/Strings, Mike Reed's Loose Assembly, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) Great Black Music Ensemble, and co-leads the internationally recognized string trio, Hear in Now with performances in Poznan, Poland; Paris, France; Rome, Venice, Milan, Italy; Soazza, Switzerland; and in the US: Chicago, New York and Vermont. In addition to the aforementioned ensembles, Ms. Reid performs with many of today's forward thinking musicians in the world of jazz and creative music including Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Jeb Bishop, Myra Melford, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Mary Halvorson, Denis Fournier, Edward Wilkerson and Harrison Bankhead. Ms. Reid also leads her own trio featuring guitarist Matt Schneider and bassist Josh Abrams, for which she composes. Ms. Reid can be heard on numerous studio recordings.

As an educator, Ms. Reid has led string improvisation workshops in Italy and the US. Most recently she co-directed the 2012 Vancouver Jazz Festival’s High School Jazz Intensive. For seven years, Ms. Reid co-directed the string program at the University of Chicago’s Laboratory School for students grade 5 thru 12. Ms. Reid is also an ABD doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign.

As a composer, Ms. Reid has been commissioned by the AACM, the Chicago Jazz Festival and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble and has had several opportunities to showcase her work abroad at festivals such as Umbria Jazz, An Insolent Noise and Vignola Jazz. She has been nominated and awarded residencies for composition with the Ragdale Foundation and the 2nd Annual Make Jazz Fellowship hosted by the 18th Street Arts Organization. Ms. Reid was selected as a 2012 participant in the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute held at the University of California: Los Angeles."

-Tomeka Reid Website (http://www.tomekareid.net/)
6/25/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. If Becomes Is 4:14

2. Shards and Constellations 3:57

3. Danced Together 4:08

4. Sung Together 6:13

5. Peace On You 9:47

6. Strange Familiar 4:45

7. A Guess That Deepens 4:17

8. Serene and Playful 3:29

9. Alber Ayler (His Live was too Short) 5:05

10. Is Becomes If 5:06

Related Categories of Interest:


Intakt
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Chicago Jazz & Improvisation
Duo Recordings
Stringed Instruments
Piano & Keyboards

Search for other titles on the label:
Intakt.


Recommended & Related Releases:
Kruttli, Marie
Transparence
(Intakt)
Swiss pianist, composer and producer Marie Kruttli, who splits her time between Switzerland and Berlin, steps away from her trio with bassist Lukas Traxel and drummer Jonathan Barber for a sophisticated solo album of original composition and improvisations, in thirteen succinct, emotional and introspectively elegant works.
Smythe, Cory (w/ Jernberg / Modney / Reid / Evans / Elk / Muncy / Laubrock / Leon / Cox / Crump )
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
(Pyroclastic Records)
After working with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, pianist Corey Smythe assmebled this incredible ensemble that includes Peter Evans (trumpet), Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Stephan Crump (bass), Tomeka Reid (cello), &c., performing works influenced by the Kern/Harbach standard "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", which Smythe then interprets abstractly in 7 solo renderings.
Reid, Tomeka / Joe Morris
Combinations
(RogueArt)
New York and Chicago string improvisers combine for an album of dense abstractions through individual lines that weave between the two players, briefly combining then moving off to independent methods, as guitarist Joe Morris and cellist Tomeka Reid meet in a Brooklyn studio to record ten improvisations, including one each dedicated to their home cities.
Douglas, Dave
Showing Up / The Power of the Vote [7" VINYL]
(Greenleaf Music)
2019 Record Store Day release, a 7" from trumpeter Dave Douglas in two different configurations: the lead track from his album "Engage" featuring guitarist Jeff Parker and cellist Tomeka Reid along with Anna Webber, Nick Dunston & Kate Gentile; and a B-Side from 2018's "Uplift" featuring Joe Lovano and Bill Laswell alongside Mary Halvorson, Julian Lage, and Ian Chang.
Reid, Tomeka / Kyoko Kitamura / Taylor Ho Bynum / Joe Morris
Geometry of Caves
(Relative Pitch)
Bringing New York and Chicago performers together, the quartet of cellist Tomeka Reid, guitarist Joe Morris, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and free vocalist Kyoko Kitamura present an album of expressive and creative collective improvisation, bridging chamber forms and free jazz with a captivatingly eccentric appeal from Kitamura's wordless vocalese.
Bynum, Taylor Ho
Enter the Plustet [CD]
(Firehouse 12 Records)
Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum draws on a variety of techniques from improvised conduction to big band orchestration to deconstructed fanfares, with a large 15 member ensemble of impressive improvisers embodying a diversity of generations, backgrounds, ethnicities, and gender, presenting three large scale compositions that are ambitious and wonderfully accomplished.



Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:
Mitchell, Matt
Oblong Aplomb [2 CDs]
(Out Of Your Head Records)
Expanding on pianist/composer Matt Mitchell's 2013 duo album Fiction with Ches Smith is this double-duo release over 2 CDs, one CD with Smith performing on drums, gongs, percussion, vibraphone, glockenspiel, tam-tam & timpani, and one CD with drummer/percussionist Kate Gentile, performing Mitchell's fascinatingly convoluted works that integrate composition with improvisation.
Illegal Crowns
Unclosing
(Out Of Your Head Records)
The 3rd stellar album of modern jazz recorded in the studio after a five-city tour from the quartet of Tomas Fujiwara on drums, Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet & flugelhorn, Mary Halvorson on guitar and Benoit Delbecq on piano, performing three compositions each from Halvorson, Fujiwara and Delbeq, illustrating their distinctive approach to creative improvisation.
Courvoisier, Sylvie / Cory Smythe
The Rite of Spring - Spectre d'un songe
(Pyroclastic Records)
Having presented a solo version of Stravinksy's The Rite of Spring at Opera Bastille in Paris with avant-flamenco dancer Israel Galván, Courvoisier developed a new work for two pianos performed with Cory Smythe, merging composition & improvisation as they invoke impressions of The Rite in tandem with Stravinksy-like reharmonizations of previous Courvoisier works.
Threadgill, Henry Ensemble
The Other One
(Pi Recordings)
Composed by Henry Threadgill based on his observations of the exodus of people from New York City during the Covid pandemic and the debris left behind, this work titled "Valence" and dedicated to percussionist Milford Graves, is a chamber jazz piece in three movements was taken from recordings at Roulette of the second of two performances entitled "One" and "The Other One".
Thomas, Pat / Chris Sharkey / Luke Reddin-Williams
Know : Delirium Atom Paths
(577 Records)
Energetic, authoritative and unpredictable, this 2020 concert at Hyde Park Book club, in Leeds, UK from the collective free improv trio of Pat Thomas on keyboards, Chris Sharkey on electric guitar and Luke Reddin on Williams on drums, burns through an extended and far-ranging set of sonic environments and seriously exhilarating straight-on playing.
Ducret, Marc (w/ Martinez / Helary / Bopp / Ducret)
Palm Sweat: Marc Ducret Plays the Music of Tim Berne
(Out Of Your Head Records)
A frequent collaborator with NY saxophonist and composer Tim Berne, French guitarist Marc Ducret takes on Berne's compositions, at times in multiple interpretations of the same work or by merging pieces together, performed with the superb support of trumpeter Fabrice Martinez, flutist Sylvaine Helary, trombonist Christiane Bopp and Ducret's son, cellist Bruno Ducret.
Liebman, Dave (w/ Peter Evans / Leo Genovese / John Hebert / Tyshawn Sorey)
Lost In Time, Live At Smalls
(Cellar Live)
Part of the SmallsLIVE Living Masters series, masterful saxophonist Dave Liebman leads the stellar quintet of Peter Evans on trumpet, Leo Genovese on piano, John Hebert on bass & Tyshawn Sorey on drums through three Liebman compositions titled for their ordinal position, relaunching a highly focused Liebman post-pandemic with this stunning live concert at Smalls Jazz Club.
Schlippenbach, Alexander Von / Francois Carrier / John Edward / Michel Lambert
Unwalled
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
A first meeting between two incredible improvised pairings--Canadians Francois Carrier on alto saxophone and Michel Lambert on drums, and Euro/UK improvisers Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano and John Edwards on double bass-- recording live in the studio in Berlin for seven improvisations of profound creative intent and inventive conversation.
Morris, Joe / Jeremy Brown
Magnitude
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
While in Calgary as a Killam Visiting Scholar, guitarist Joe Morris worked with multi-wind player and professor Jeremy Brown, whose solo work impressed Morris so much that they began performing regularly as a duo, deciding to rehearse and record this remarkable series of improvised duos that Morris describes as unique to his catalog, something conversationally precise and organic.
Sorey, Tyshawn Trio + 1 w/ Greg Osby
The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism [3 CDs]
(Pi Recordings)
A 3-volume set from four night's performances at The Jazz Gallery in NYC by the Tyshawn Sorey trio of drummer Sorey, pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Russell Hall, joined by alto saxophonist Greg Osby for sets of exceptionally sophisticated and passionate interpretations of jazz standards including work by Miles Davis, Billy Strayhorn, Cole Porter, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner, &c.
Russell, Hal / Joel Futterman
The Chicago River [3 CDs]
(Fundacja Sluchaj!)
Late Chicago saxophonist, trumpeter & vibraphonist Hal Russell (NRG Ensemble) and legendary pianist Joel Futterman, also on curved soprano saxophone & Indian flue, are heard in the complete recordings from their two day concert for the victims of the 1992 Great Flood of the Chicago River, presenting a five part work of flowing free jazz force and currents of creative power.
Dreamstruck (Crispell / Fonda / Sorgen)
With Grace In Mind
(Fundacja Sluchaj!)
Officially taking their group name from the title of their first album, The Dreamstruck trio of Marilyn Crispell on piano, Joe Fonda on bass and Harvey Sorgen on drums are heard in this innately lyrical and masterfully controlled, concise set of studio recordings, with compositions from each performer and two collective improvisations, a remarkable example of the modern piano trio.
Baars, Ab / Kaja Draksler / Terrie Exx
When The Hills Run Across The Fields - Live In Nickelsdorf
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
Drawing on previous collaborations between Amsterdam pianist Kaja Draksler and wind player Ab Baars, here on tenor sax, clarinet & shakuhachi, and two duo albums between Baars and guitarist Terrie Ex, this meeting as a trio took place at the 2018 Konfrontationen Festival in Nickelsdorf, Austria for a diverse journey from uniquely introspective to wildly energetic conversation.
Eberhard, Silke Trio
Being The Up And Down
(Intakt)
The 4th album from saxophonist & bass clarinetist Silke Ebherard with her long-running powerhouse trio of Jan Roder on bass and Kay Lübke on drums, presenting all Eberhard compositions showing her strong writing voice under the influence of jazz greats like Dolphy, Mingus and Coleman, through nine well-balanced pieces from bluesy introspection to burning freedom.
Lewis, James Brandon Quartet
Code of Being
(Intakt)
With a clarity in both improvising and in composing, NY tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis' second album with the rock solid quartet of Aruan Ortiz on piano, Brad Jones on bass and Chad Taylor on drums further explores his concepts of Molecular systematic music through powerfully solid compositions that lead to both lyrical and ardent soloing; exceptional.
Pavone, Mario / Dialect Trio + 1
Blue Vertical
(Out Of Your Head Records)
Recorded in 2021, one of late New York bassist Mario Pavone's final studio albums sees the composer extending his Direct Trio of pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Tyshawn Sorey with trumpeter Dave Ballou, a longtime collaborator who brings an additional level of lyrical excitement and sophistication to the group's work, in 9 substantial compositions and collective works.
Threadgill, Henry Zooid
Poof
(Pi Recordings)
The sixth album in saxophonist and composer Henry Threadgill's Zood small ensemble project Zooid, a quintet with guitarist Liberty Ellman, tuba & trombonist Jose Davila, cellist Christopher Hoffman and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee, following Threadgill's serial intervallic language compositions to create an amazingly intricate yet warmly embraceable avant jazz; exceptional!
Cora, Tom / David Moss
Cargo Cult Revival
(Klanggalerie)
Essential performers on the 80s Downtown NY scene, cellist Tom Cora and percussionist & vocalist David Moss released this album in 1983 on Fred Frith's Rift label, ten active and often absurd duo improvisation of informed interaction, intertwining strings, drums, odd rhythmic sources and strange vocal utterances, yielding to both serious improv and whimsical notions.
Coltrane, John Quartet
Newport, New York, Alabama, 1963, Revisited
(ezz-thetics by Hat Hut Records Ltd)
Two quartets performing two live concerts from 1963 led by John Coltrane on tenor & soprano saxophones, the first at the Newport Jazz Festival with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on double bass and Roy Haynes on drums, the second at Birdland with Elvin Jones on the drums, plus 2 studio recordings with that quartet at Van Gelder Studio in the same year.
Taylor, Cecil Quintet (feat. Harri Sjostrom / Tristan Honsinger / Teppo Hauta-aho / Paul Lovens)
Lifting The Bandstand
(Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))
Though not well documented, free jazz legendary pianist Cecil Taylor's working band for 3 years in the late nineties was this quintet of Harri Sjostrom on soprano saxophone, Tristan Honsinger on cello, Teppo Hauta-aho on double bass, and Paul Lovens on drums, cymbals & gongs, heard in this energetic concert at Tampere Jazz Happening in Finland, 2018.




The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

© 2002-, Squidco LLC