Kaz Hawkins Full Force Gale

When she sings, Kaz Hawkins takes us into her vast and colourful universe, simple words express the strong emotions she writes about in an artistic universe that matches her endearing and free personality.

If there is one place where Kaz Hawkins' talent is perfectly expressed, it is the stage. This album recorded at the Summer Camp Festival in Brezoi, Romania is irrefutable proof. Having become one of the most important blues festivals in Europe, Brezoi has long crowned Kaz Hawkins as one of its queens, with the Northern Irishwoman being one of the headliners of the event each year. This public recording of 12 tracks is a new stone in Kaz Hawkins' musical edifice which is growing day by day to now approach the summits of the genre. A pure treat.

The previous Art Ensemble of Chicago ECM album Nice Guys vaulted them to the top of improvised music groups in the U.S. and worldwide, paving the way for similar bands to be more accepted into the mainstream of modern music. Where "Full Force" generally lives up to the title, there's also a palpable diverse approach, producing more than enough potent music brimming from the sinews of these brilliant musicians to uphold their burgeoning cache.

The full quintet had been together for a decade when it made this 1980 recording in a New York studio. The major work is Malachi Favors Maghostus's "Magg Zelma," nearly 20 minutes in length. It begins as a percussive soundscape with the most delicate sounds of resonating scraped metal, then moves through a shifting sequence of textures: a profound tenor lament by Joseph Jarman, a heated trumpet solo by Lester Bowie against an expanding rhythmic backdrop, and an unusual bassoon solo by Roscoe Mitchell. In contrast, Mitchell's "Care Free" is a buoyant, almost dancelike melody that lasts a mere 46 seconds.