ALEX MAGUIRE
Genres: Avant-Garde Jazz, Classic Fusion, Post-Fusion Contemporary • United Kingdom

Alex Maguire has built an extremely strong reputation as a multi-faceted keyboard player over the past few years. He has, in addition to small band settings like this one, held the keyboard chair in the late drummer Pip Pyle's group Bash! and, after that, participated in a reunion tour of Canterbury legend Hatfield and the North. He also developed a technique of playing he calls "comprovisation"—a blend of spontaneity and structure that he demonstrates in spades on this live recording. Maguire has fine chops and an aggressive approach to playing in any context, largely unheard since the heyday of folks like keyboardists Mike Ratledge and Dave Stewart, but here he does not demonstrate Ratledge's overt chops or Stewart's harmonic sophistication. He does, however, clearly possess a knowledge of straight-ahead jazz forms that exceeds that of either of these formidable players. from allaboutjazz