Alex Hitchcock

Alex Hitchcock works as a jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. During his undergraduate years he took the helm of the Cambridge University Jazz Orchestra. Early associations included stints alongside the Tom Smith Septet, Resolution 88, and Joe Hill's North Ark; he subsequently assembled his own quintet, which issued Live at the London & Cambridge Jazz Festivals in 2018 and All Good Things the next year. Still in 2019 he joined bassist/composer Tom Barford and drummer James Maddren to launch the group Aub. Its self-titled debut surfaced in 2020. With Dream Band, released in 2021, Hitchcock convened three separate ensembles expressly to explore their differing sonorities. The 2022 release Same Moon in the Same World, a collaboration with guitarist Ant Law, earned widespread praise after being tracked with an international roster of jazz notables. Dream Band: Live in London, issued in 2023, captured performances from three consecutive evenings at the Vortex Club in London, where three hand-selected bands interpreted original pieces written for each occasion.

Born and raised in London, Hitchcock began on violin at age four before abandoning the instrument at nine in favor of alto saxophone. A strong attachment to the playing of Coleman Hawkins and Joshua Redman prompted a further change, this time to tenor saxophone. At Cambridge University he read English while immersing himself in the city's jazz community and continued to direct the Cambridge University Jazz Orchestra, which visited Istanbul and worked with Gareth Lockrane. Returning to London, he pursued postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music and organized a namesake quintet for his final recital. An EP drawn from that project, Live at the London & Cambridge Jazz Festivals, appeared in 2018; Spain's Fresh Sound New Talent label subsequently signed the ensemble. In 2019 the Alex Hitchcock quintet recorded and released its label debut, All Good Things. Hitchcock also featured that year with the Patchwork Jazz Orchestra on The Adventures of Mr. Pottercakes.

Later in 2019, Hitchcock and saxophonist/composer Tom Barford recruited drummer James Maddren to form Aub (pronounced Orb), which delivered an eponymous Edition Records album in 2020. Additional credits from the period encompass Joe Downward's Seven Japanese Tales and Post Louis' Descender. In 2021 Hitchcock joined guitarist Ant Law and French drummer Marc Michel on double bassist Matt Ridley's quartet album The Antidote, a 2019 recording comprising five Ridley originals plus a five-part suite occupying an entire side. Also in 2021, Hitchcock issued his second Fresh Sound New Talent long-player, Dream Band, which documented three days of sessions in May featuring the saxophonist's writing and arrangements for three ensembles convened solely for the date.

Throughout the pandemic and into 2021, Hitchcock and Law assembled an international cast that included bassists Linda May Han Oh and Ben Williams, vibraphonist Joel Ross, bass clarinetist Tim Garland, pianist Shai Maestro, and drummers Jeff Ballard, Eric Harland, Kendrick Scott, and Sun-Mi Hong to track their joint compositions remotely. Released by Outside In Music as The Same Moon in the Same World, the project received global critical acclaim for its concentration and refusal to yield to quarantine restrictions.

In August 2022 Hitchcock assembled three distinct sextets for three nights at the Vortex Club, performing in each group. Core participants Law, Michel, and Maddren were joined by pianist Kit Downes, trumpeter Alexandra Ridout, vocalist Liselotte Östblom, and others. The resulting triple-length set, Dream Band: Live in London, was released in November 2023.