Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Alan Wilkinson and the Akodo Quartet, Cafe Oto, London
Elemental: Alan Wilkinson [Cafe Oto]

VETERAN virtuoso of the baritone saxophone, Alan Wilkinson is a scintillating improvising free jazzer and at Cafe Oto he's joined by three young Norwegians in the Akodo Quartet — bassist Ola Hoyer, drummer Dag Erik Knedal Anderson and Kim Johanneson on guitar and banjo.

The elemental power of Wilkinson’s saxophone is like nothing else in European jazz.

His opening colloquy with Johanneson’s chinking guitar reveals the sheer potency of a sound which growls, snarls and wails at his top register and plunges down into the lower depths of his horn in an instant, making height and profundity all of one sonic place.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
dankworth
Interview / 23 July 2025
23 July 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to vocalist Jacqui Dankworth

moholo
Appreciation / 9 July 2025
9 July 2025

CHRIS SEARLE pays tribute to the late South African percussionist, Louis Moholo-Moholo

CS albums
Album Reviews / 7 July 2025
7 July 2025

Re-releases from Bobby Wellins/Kenny Wheeler Quintet, Larry Stabbins/Keith Tippet/Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Charles Mingus Quintet

sofia
Interview / 2 July 2025
2 July 2025

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ethiopian vocalist SOFIA JERNBERG

Similar stories
oto
Jazz / 30 April 2025
30 April 2025

CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May

Culture / 12 December 2024
12 December 2024
CHRIS SEARLE picks his favourites
Pat Thomas, Steve Noble and Seymour Wright play Cafe Ito
Music review / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
CHRIS SEARLE translates the fusion of four jazz maestros into a mental image of Hackney Carnival
Music review / 6 September 2024
6 September 2024
CHRIS SEARLE is transported by a combative fusion of US and UK instrumentalists and landmark evening of jazz