Wadada Leo Smith & Alexander Hawkins

Wadada Leo Smith and Alexander Hawkins have played together before – but not in a church, and not using a pipe organ, which makes this performance a world premiere. Smith, born in 1941, is a veteran with an enormous list of his achievements to his credit. Hawkins, the junior of the two by exactly 40 years, received praise from the Berlin audience last year for his appearance as the pianist with the quartet of the South African drummer Louis Moholo Moholo. He trained as a church organist in his youth before switching to the piano at 18, and in recent years he has sometimes played Hammond organ in a trio called Decoy, alongside the bassist John Edwards and the drummer Steve Noble. He leads his own septet and trio and is a member of the band led by the Ethiopian vibraphonist Mulatu Astatke.
www.wadadaleosmith.com
www.alexanderhawkinsmusic.com