SLAMCD323 George Haslam, Richard Leigh Harris & Steve Kershaw feat. Lol Coxhill – From Whichford Hill

Live free jazz quartet recording, part of the OxJams – Oxford Jazz Masters Series – featuring saxophonists Lol Coxhill and George Haslam, pianist Richard Leigh Harris and bassist Steve Kershaw. They perform four group improvisations, plus Lol plays a masterful, epic solo number.

Lol Coxhill: soprano saxophone
George Haslam: baritone saxophone, tarogato
Richard Leigh Harris: piano
Steve Kershaw: double bass

“Listening to Coxhill you realise again how his sound, brilliantly terse and unique, full of edge, surprise, audacity and lyrical beauty, expressed the truly human spirit of music, simultaneously of the ordinary and the glorious – and always of the real world, of humour, pain, discovery, perplexity, happiness and inordinate skill…it is during Coxhill’s 13-minute solo piece Alone And Unnoticed that memories of his lonesome busking erupt in the listener’s mind – his breathiness, his lyricism on the edge of sound, his human birdsong, his sudden unique and utterly spontaneous melodies carry you with the eastern Thamesflow from Oxford to his old pitches in central London.” – Chris Searle, Morning Star

“With Haslam’s baritone featured extensively, and some dark pianism and bass by Harris and Kershaw there’s some weighty free improvisation on offer. The most compelling track, however, is “Alone And Unnoted”, a solo performance by the soprano saxist. Coxhill’s work has been touched by genius, and this beautiful meditation shows a free master still at the height of his powers. Coxhill is happy to allude to the blues and to jazz standards – thought not, on this occasion, to “Strangers On The Shore”, as far as I could tell – and near its end, he throws in some bebop lines and licks to remind us of his inheritance. Beautiful.” – Andy Hamilton, Jazz Review

Recorded at The Holywell Music Room, Oxford, 12th March 2006 by Eric Smith.

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