MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
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Nicole Mitchell and Alex Hawkins
Cafe Oto
I THOUGHT I was hearing birdsong over the rooftops of Hackney last night, but it was the quivering flutesong beauty of Nicole Mitchell, coming from a musical tryst at Cafe Oto as she blew alongside the grounding piano brilliance of Alex Hawkins, creating a fusion of the sky and the Earth in the heart of London.
Mitchell, born in Syracuse, New York state, bred in San Diego, California where she learned classical flute and busked on the Pacific streets, honed her artistry with the avant garde masters of the Association of the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) of Chicago, forged an empathetic internationalist duo with Oxford-born Hawkins.
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