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Michael Adkins

MICHAEL ADKINS, a critically regarded jazz saxophonist and composer raised by Lake Huron’s juncture with the St. Clair River, has traveled a peripatetic landscape between Ontario, Michigan, New York, Boston, New York, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, and back again. Adkins’ work across these travels has been particularly influenced by musical relationships formed with drummers: a critically applauded recording and performances with fellow Canadian Ian Froman; performances and two acclaimed recordings with Paul Motian; current work with Rakalam Bob Moses, and five years of almost continuous sessioning and performances with the late Alvin Fielder, who summarized Adkins playing in three words: “He can swing.” Fielder, a founding member of the Black Arts Music Society and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, himself traveled from his natal Meridian to New Orleans, Houston, Chicago, New York, and the world as a stellar improviser before returning to Jackson; Fielder’s musical contributions, dedication to jazz artistry, and devotion to the contributions of his family to African American civil rights and music remain legendary. For Adkins, he was a friend and mentor non pareil. Adkins’ latest recording release, Michael Adkins Quartet Flaneur, on HatHut Records, has gained considerable acclaim: Cadence magazine includes it in its 2019 top ten critic’s choice list. Stuart Boomer calls Flaneur “a work as profoundly elegiac as any a Canadian musician has produced.” Julian Aunos, in CitizenJazz, observes, “La musique est là, lumineuse, douce, et envoûtante. Pas tout à fait des ballades mais pas encore up-tempos. Entre-deux.” And Jazziz critic Jakob Baekgaard calls it “a gift out of nowhere.” Flaneur features the late Paul Motian on drums, Russ Lossing on piano, and Larry Grenadier on bass; it was recorded after the HatHut release of the Michael Adkins Quartet Rotator, also featuring Motian and Lossing, with John Hébert on bass. Rotator was selected as WIRE Magazine’s 2008 Jazz & Improv Album of the year, with Brian Morton of The WIRE calling it, “the best hour of contemporary jazz I've heard this year.” Adkins’ first CD release, Infotation, featuring Froman on drums and Hébert on bass, appeared on indie-label Semblance Records in 2005, a decade before the term would surface at an IEEE conference as an attraction between patterns of information, given correspondence between energy and information. More important is Marc Corroto’s All About Jazz observation: “When an artist like Michael Adkins releases a disc like Infotation, no alarms go off.

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Album Review

Michael Adkins Quartet: Flaneur

Read "Flaneur" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard


Canadian saxophonist Michael Adkins' third album, and his second on Hat Hut, Flaneur, arrives in a shroud of mystery. Back in 2008, Adkins released his debut for Hat Hut records, Rotator, but as it is turns out, he recorded another album the same year. It seems incredibly prolific, but it took ten years before it was released and here it is. Flaneur shows up as a gift out of nowhere, ten years unaccounted for, but in this ...

248
Album Review

Michael Adkins: Rotator

Read "Rotator" reviewed by Budd Kopman


From its very first notes, Rotator, by tenor saxophonist Michael Adkins, makes an extremely strong statement. It is a wonderful record, truly engaging, with so much happening without the slightest hint of congestion, that once over, it almost demands an immediate replay. This is an important recording for the simple reason that the door to modern, intellectually stimulating jazz is opened widely, without ever losing touch with what is musical--physical sound, melody (or the thematic phrase) and ...

294
Album Review

Michael Adkins Quartet: Rotator

Read "Rotator" reviewed by Chris May


A gigantic album from an extraordinary “new" tenor saxophonist. Rotator is actually Michael Adkins' second disc as leader, but his first--Infotation (Semblance Records, 2005), recorded back in 2000 and five years finding a label--slipped under the radar of many listeners. Thirty-something Adkins, brought up around Detroit but based in New York since 1998, seems to have sprung fully formed from whatever mould they make great tenor players in.

Adkins' playing has the gravitas of someone 20 years his senior and ...

130
Album Review

Michael Adkins: Infotation

Read "Infotation" reviewed by Mark Corroto


For every John Coltrane, there is a Hank Mobley; every Dizzy Gillespie has a Dizzy Reece. Not every tenor saxophonist can be Joe Lovano these days, especially when so very few listeners follow current jazz happenings.

Players like Lovano and tenor saxophonist Michael Adkins, who are technically adept at their instrument, tend to take a back seat to either the innovative avant types or those who play caramelized pop. When an artist like Michael Adkins releases a disc ...

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"Adkins literally speaks through his horn with a soft-edged but full tone that supports his logically connecting, yet elliptical phrases. Able to say more with a simple two-note descending interval than many do in an entire solo, Adkins can present such simple material refracted and “rotated” many different ways until they have expanded to fill the musical space. His feel for rhythm, while never actually stating a distinct pulse, is delicious and reinforces the adage that one can say much more by saying less."

- Budd Kopman AllAboutJazz

Louis Armstrong
trumpet and vocals
Sonny Rollins
saxophone
John Coltrane
saxophone
Coleman Hawkins
saxophone, tenor
Charlie Parker
saxophone, alto
Lester Young
saxophone
Charles Ives
composer / conductor

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Flaneur

Hat Hut Records
2018

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Rotator

Hat Hut Records
2008

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Infotation

Semblance Records
2005

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