Home » Jazz Musicians » Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble
Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble
Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Prairie Prophet
by Jerry D'Souza
The Velvet Lounge in Chicago, opened by Fred Anderson in the 1980s, is well-known for the adventurous bands it presents. Time cannot encapsulate the number of bands that played there, fueling an ongoing interest in free jazz. Saxophonist Ernest Dawkins was one who found a welcoming stage; he now pays tribute to Anderson, who died in 2010. The New Horizons Ensemble has been together for a long time, and it shows in the assured and powerful performances that ...
read moreErnest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Prairie Prophet
by Troy Collins
Since 1978, saxophonist Ernest Dawkins has led his flagship band, The New Horizons Ensemble, through myriad jazz traditions, from blues, swing and funk to post-bop, avant-garde and beyond. The Prairie Prophet, their fifth album on Delmark, is dedicated to one of Chicago's most venerated scene leaders, the late tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson, a founding member of the AACM and proprietor of The Velvet Lounge. Exuding an air of celebratory reverence, the session includes homages to spiritual leaders, fellow artistic innovators ...
read moreErnest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Messenger
by Nic Jones
If these players are indeed looking towards new horizons, as the band's name suggests, then they're doing so from a vantage point rooted in the past, and their view of the past is of a worthwhile order. If a great many musicians regard it as something worthy only of the most submissive reverence, these guys view it as a happy, rambunctious place, where the joy of the moment is to be gripped with both hands, and the thrill of making ...
read moreErnest Dawkins: Live At The Original Velvet Lounge
by Karl A.D. Evangelista
Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble Live At The Original Velvet Lounge Delmark 2006
Ernest Khabeer Dawkins is old-school to the bone. Which is not to say that he's a conventionalist, much less a purist. In line with the philosophy of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)--of which he is a member, alumnus and present chairman--Dawkins is simultaneously traditionalist and futurist. His New Horizons Ensemble is a sort of ...
read moreErnest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: Cape Town Shuffle
by Mark Corroto
Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble continues to give the people what they want. That is butt-shakin' blues based jazz. Like Charles Mingus recalling the field hollers, the Art Ensemble of Chicago bringing the beat straight out of Africa, and Dizzy Gillespie spinning into new heights with bebop, Dawkins stirs his listeners to get up and move.
Maybe sometime and somewhere when jazz moved from clubs to concert halls, the gesticulate aspects of the music were lost. ...
read moreErnest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: Jo'burg Jump
by Mark Corroto
The focus of creative music is shifting ever so slowly away from New York. The pioneers for the Downtown scene Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz moved to the Northwest, Sam Rivers, champion of the 1960 and 70's loft scene is based in Orlando, Jackie McLean is in Hartford, Vinny Golia hails from LA, and Sonny Rollins moved upstate years ago. So where is the scene? I say Chicago. A city rich in tradition from King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and ...
read moreErnest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble Comes Through with "The Prairie Prophet"
Source:
Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
Chicago's Ernest Dawkins has been making some very goodly music for some time now (11 CDs so far). His New Horizons Ensemble has been a big part of the scene since 1978! On The Prairie Prophet (Delmark 598) Dawkins runs the mid-sized, seven-artist cast through in-jazz to out-jazz compositions that have plenty of latitude for the considerable improvising abilities of the players while emblazoning a distinctive stamp on the sound and thrust of the music. This is a well-paced set, ...
read more