Name Kit Downes Role Pianist | Education Royal Academy of Music | |
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Albums Golden, Light From Old Stars, Moxxy, Subjekt, Welcome to Bat Country People also search for Stan Sulzmann, Joshua Black, Jim Hart, Alexander Hawkins Profiles | ||
Kit Downes Quintet - Outlawed (recorded live for BBC Jazz on 3, with animation by Lesley Barnes)
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.
Contents
- Kit Downes Quintet Outlawed recorded live for BBC Jazz on 3 with animation by Lesley Barnes
- Jamie cullum w kit downes make someone happy passionskirche berlin
- Biography
- Awards
- Discography
- References
Jamie cullum w kit downes make someone happy passionskirche berlin
Biography
Downes attended Norwich School, the Purcell School and the Royal Academy of Music.
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. In January 2015 the band released the album Ornithophobia, described by John Fordham of The Guardian as "the trio at their most unbuttoned and sometimes their most lyrical. They stir together prog-rock clamours, thrash-jazz, blues, minimalism and a cauldron of other volatile ingredients."
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. 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.
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 at Abbey Road for Matthew Herbert, recorded for BBC 6 Music 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
Discography
An asterisk (*) after the year indicates that it is the year of release.