Alan Wilkinson
Alan Wilkinson is a British saxophonist working in free jazz and free improvisation, playing baritone, alto and soprano saxophones and using his voice. He studied painting in Leeds before turning to music, and in 1983 he was one of the founders of the Termite Club at the Adelphi pub, a central venue for improvised music in the north of England. He is known above all for the trio with drummer Paul Hession and bassist Simon Fell. Alan Wilkinson played with Paul Hession in the group Crow and then in a long-running duo, which became a trio when Simon Fell joined in 1989.
Obliquity
2025 stock Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Ayler, Sanders, Graves, Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances.
Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking back/up to the 1960s. Wilkinson/Ed…
3 Of A Kind (Live At Iklectik)
2025 stock The trio of Wilkinson, Edwards and Noble continue to plot their course ever outward and ever upward. These new songs, recorded in South London at that wonderful performance space - at the heart of the improve scene here at this moment - Iklectik , are the very beating heart of improvised music. It’s not that they are good, or even representative – such relative terms fail to express the continuum of which these sounds are a key part. This is music that evades the strictures of scienti…
Obliquity
2007 release ** "Obliquity is a free jazz record, if you'll forgive the use of such a hoary, old-fashioned phrase. Its scorching, heads-down momentum, rhythm and drive, places it in direct line of descent from the fierce originators of the genre: Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, Milford Graves, and Frank Wright. It also swings. At times it dances. Obliquity is a free jazz record through the prism of the improvisational movement in Europe, though. This is no attempt at polite revivalism or looking …
One In The Eye
“From May this year, One In The Eye is a double CD bringing together Alan Wilkinson and Dirk Serries for selection jagged, moody, to-playful improv. The set features one disc taking in eight tracks, and a second disc features two longer work-out.
The first disc opens with the nearing six minutes of “Upshot”- here we find Serries jagging ‘n’ jerking strums weaved with Wilkinson energetic and at points quite seared sax work- this works as a nicely urgent and shifting opener for the release, throwi…
Along Came Joe
A single 35-minute improvisation by Eddie Prévost (drums), Alan Wilkinson (alto and baritone saxophones) and Joe Williamson (double bass), recorded live at the Freedom of the City festival, London, on 1 May 2006.
The Vortex of Past Time
**300 copies** "And there is an abundance of material displayed here, as Andrew Cheetham and Alan Wilkinson combine impressive technical prowess, dynamics and imagination into a whole that combines physicality with thoughtfulness, tumult with intimacy. A musical performance remains the ideal way to deal with the impermanence of everything, and this album makes an excellent case." Guy Peters"Percussionist Cheetham and reedist Wilkinson, veteran improvisers of the UK scene, collaborate here on fou…
Quartet & Quintet - Double Vortex
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Understated, tightly controlled, minimalist music always gets the better deal. There is something mature and cultured about an artist who distills and reaches for the essence instead of provoking and dabbling in exuberance, volume and a cluster of diverging ideas. In a world that is nearly driven to total chaos by a maddening abundance of impulses, Goethe’s worn out adage - that it is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself - has become the ultimate compl…
Whenever
**75 copies** A free improvised music duo recorded on February 28, 2018, at Flimflam night in Ryan’s Bar, London. Alan Wilkinson: bass clarinet, tenor saxophone - Tasos Stamou: diy synths, Korg Volca FM, digital horn.
The Founder Effect II
With a generosity of spirit that is touching, the three tracks on this disc are titled after deceased (and much missed) improv heroes—drummer Tony Marsh, saxophonists Lol Coxhill and John Tchicai. (Coxhill never recorded for Treader but Marsh and Tchicai both did.) That gesture serves as a reminder of the close-knit nature of the improv community—a factor which is vital to its music. Although this CD features the same four musicians as the first one, Coxon here plays synthesiser instead of guita…
The Founder Effect I
You cannot judge a book by its cover. Maybe, but music fans somehow know that expression doesn't lend itself to album covers (in this case, CD covers). Look at the Blue Note Records covers from the 1960 sixties, Miles Davis' On The Corner (Columbia, 1972), or The Clash's London Calling (Columbia, 1979), and tell me you don't have a very good idea what you'll hear on those records. Covers matter, and more importantly they reveal essential information about the music found inside. Since 2004, the …
Two Falls & A Submission
Paul Hession, drums. Alan Wilkinson, saxophones. Simon H Fell, bass. ''Greetings, Grapple Fans' were the words that introduced Saturday afternoon wrestling on British commercial television when all three members of this trio were boys. These memorable words were spoken by a silky-voiced commentator called Kent Walton, who commentated on the wrestling between 1955 and 1988. When discussing improvised music one frequently use analogies and there are three in particular that usually come to …
Dem Ol' Apple Pie Melodies
Determined to continue collaborating with revolutionary blitzkrieg musicians in perpetuity, Talibam! Matt Mottel and Kevin Shea were set up on a blind date with Alan Wilkinson by Bo' Weavil Recordings for a London basement show in May '08. Like a late '60's Sadean love-in ripe with Joycean epiphanies, Talibam! heard in Wilkinson's tone the strength and grit of a fine british pint served cool and fresh…a perfect energy to swing-bounce their rolly polly hieroglyphic dance mayhem. A second gig happ…
Live at Café Oto
The live music experience is what it’s all about! Let’s face it, the recording, the thing (CD, vinyl, ipod), that you’re listening to now is a luxury – a convenient form of storing and a flawed attempt at revisiting the ecstasy of the live experience. Live music is at the heart of civilization and culture. Live music is real music – the recording is simply the run out groove of time, a means to try and capture the experience. This trio is defined by live performance. The relationship between the…
One night in Burmantofts
A long overdue meeting of two of the titans of the saxophone. Alan Wilkinson (alto, Baritone & Voice) and Peter Brotzmann (clarinet, tarogato & tenor) together with Willi Kellers (drums) and Simon H. Fell (bass) blow up one hell of a storm. The individuals on this recording consciously commit, putting themselves 'out there', over the edge. The energy, the electricity, generated by saxophonists Wilkinson and Brötzmann, is a result of their fearless approach to the precipice and their willingness …
In a sentimental mood
A collaborative CD released in 1996 on incus, featuring former Skullflower guitarist Stefan Jaworzyn and saxophonist Alan Wilkinson. Recorded by Giles Perring at the Red Rose Club, February 27, 1996. Drums of passion (22.11), My psychotic Valentine (15.01), David Murray dons a cunning Alan Wilkinson disguise and blags his way onto a bill at the Termite Club (11.33), Excerpts from a typical hard bop blowing session (10.49), Give a man a saxophone and he'll end up playing jazz (14.23). GREAT!
So Are We, So Are We
Duo of Eddie Prévost (drums) and Alan Wilkinson (alto and baritone saxophones), five improvisations released by Matchless in 2006.
Duos, London 2001
Derek Bailey, electric guitar (tracks 1, 2), acoustic guitar (track 3); Alan Wilkinson, baritone saxophone, voice (track 1); Roger Turner, percussion (track 2); Julian Kytasty, bandura, flute (track 3).