His collaborations and sideman gigs, above all with the legendary Louis Moholo-Moholo, are notable, but Hawkins' recordings under his own name have also been worthy of attention. This 2CD release is an impressive overview of the British pianist's strength in both small group and orchestral formats, though there is some overlap in personnel between the sextet on the first disc and the 13-piece ensemble on the second. The tremendous vigour and momentum of the first band is writ large on the opening track, a reprise of Jerome Cooper's ‘For The People’, in which the joyous hop-skip-jump theme is embellished with a series of taut, concise but memorable variations. Elsewhere there is a strong resonance of Prime Time's low slung off-centre funk while the orchestral material has an architectural complexity that reflects Hawkins' avowed interest in AACM aesthetics. While the quality of the collaborators across the two discs is consistently high the fine details really make a difference, be it the bittersweet sway of Otto Fischer's voice, which is well juxtaposed with the croak of Shabaka Hutchings' bass clarinet, or the way Matthew Wright's electronics provide sly embers to the dusk fire of the horns. As absorbing a soloist as he is, with his slanted, elliptical lines, Hawkins is really a vital link in a long historical chain, and his ability to sculpt his own language from a deeply rooted creative bedrock is compelling.