Alex Ward was born in 1974, and began learning piano and clarinet at the ages of 5 and 9 respectively. While growing up in Grantham, he developed an interest in a wide range of music, largely inspired by trawling through his parents’ record collection. The presence of a copy of Ornette Coleman’s “This Is Our Music” led him to investigate subsequent developments from jazz, including free improvisation. As a result of this interest, he went on a summer course on improvisation run by Community Music in 1986...