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.

On their second piece, Mitchell’s galvanised flute soared, glided and sang in freedom while Hawkins’s stomping notes made hitherto unheard melodies. They played so closely, as if no ocean separated their origins.

The hoots of the blues are at the heart of Mitchell’s sound, sometimes with the cry of a wounded bird, creating instant avian sounds which enjoin sadness and joy. She hisses and respires into the magic of her flute while Hawkins leans over the Cafe Oto open piano and plucks its strings, forging the softest yet most chiming of lyricisms and making the previously unknown, known.

Their duo was superb, making the spinning innovation and once-ever melodies that the listeners wished that they could hear again and again. The Cafe Oto recording machines were faithfully rolling. I only hope that sometime soon an album emerges, for jazz lovers both sides of the Atlantic would love and relish the improvisation and beauty of this one Dalston night.