Kit Downes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kit Downes is a British jazz pianist. Downes plays regularly with his own trio, Stan Sulzmann, Troyka, The Golden Age of Steam, Sam Crockatt and Clark Tracey - and has played with Joe Locke, Gilad Atzmon, Empirical, Gerard Presencer, Seb Rochford, Iain Ballamy, Sarah Gillespie, Peter Ind, Gwyneth Herbert, John Warren and Eugene Skeef. He has also performed with British bands Fraud, Asaf Sirkis' Inner Noise, Gilad Atzmon's Orient House Ensemble, Acoustic Ladyland, Nostalgia 77, 2000 Black, Silhouette Brown and Dennis Rollins' Badbone and Co.

Biography

Downes attended Norwich School, the Purcell School and the Royal Academy of Music.[1]

He was a member of Empirical, appearing on their debut album, Empirical (Destin-e Records). The album, produced by Courtney Pine, was the Jazzwise album of the year and the Mojo album of the year in 2007. Work with Empirical included The North Sea Jazz Festival, The JVC Festivals in New York, Montreal and Newport, and Vancouver Jazz Festival. Empirical also won the EBU Award at the North Sea Festival.

Downes left Empirical and went on to form prog jazz group Troyka, as well as continuing to work with the Kit Downes Trio. Troyka has Downes on keys, Chris Montague on guitar and Joshua Blackmore on drums.[2] The Trio, including bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer James Maddren, released their debut album Golden on Basho Records in November 2009, which was one of the 12 albums shortlisted for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize.[3] In June 2010, the Trio recorded a new album, for release on Basho Records in March 2011, with guests cellist Adrien Dennefeld and saxophonist/bass clarinetist James Allsopp.[4]

The Trio have been together since their first year at the Royal Academy of Music, in 2005. The band has played at the London Jazz Festival 2008 and 2009, Ronnie Scott's British Jazz Festival, BBC Radio 3 Live Broadcast, Glasgow Jazz Festival and Cheltenham Jazz Festival. The Trio are inspired by a wide range of influences, ranging from Béla Bartók to Keith Jarrett to Rufus Wainwright.

Downes has also worked with composer Micachu, with whom he recorded in Abbey Road for Matthew Herbert, recorded for BBC Radio 6 and played at the Sonar Music Festival '07 in Barcelona. He is also a member of the F-IRE Collective, an initiative set up by Barak Schmool, which is a musician-led collective to encourage shared learning and sharing of resources.

Awards

  • Winner of BBC Jazz Award 2008: Rising Star
  • Yamaha Jazz Scholarship Award 2009

Discography

  • Empirical: Empirical, 2008
  • Troyka: Troyka (Edition), 2009
  • Duo with Tom Cawley: Homely, 2009
  • Clark Tracey: Current Climate (Tentoten), 2009
  • Kit Downes Trio: Golden (Basho Records, SRCD 31-2), 2009
  • Kit Downes Trio: Quiet Tiger (Basho Records, SRCD 34-2), 2010
  • Kit Downes Quintet: Light from Old Stars (Basho Records, SRCD 42-2), 2013

References

  1. ↑ Jazz breaking news: Kit Downes Trio Nominated For The Mercury
  2. ↑ Troyka on MySpace
  3. ↑ Dizzee Rascal heads up Mercury prize nominations
  4. ↑ Kit Downes blog: trio recording

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.