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ALBUM NOW OUT ON AMAZON AND ITUNES .........
..............."a release that looks set to secure Downes' reputation as an accomplished composer and virtuoso improviser supremely comfortable inhabiting a contemporary acoustic piano setting" - Dan Spicer, Jazzwise, August 2009......"an exceptional talent" **** - Stuart Nicholson, The Observer Music Monthly 2009......"This gig was a reminder of what makes him special…a hot virtuoso. **** - Ivan Hewett, Telegraph 2008......."Kit Downes is about to emerge as a formidable force in his own right…his originals were haunting, and his hypnotic, Mehldau-influenced playing fizzed with ideas that got hotter by the moment. Three to watch." - John Fordham, Jazz UK 2008.......“A brilliant soloist who builds ideas slowly into cascades of melodic ideas...His prodigious keyboard skills avoid obvious neo-bop tendencies with highly imaginative tunes and expansive, melodic solos.” - Mike Flynn, Timeout 2008.......................After studying at both the Purcell School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music - Kit now plays regularly with his own trio, Troyka, The Golden Age of Steam, The Threads Orchestra, Martin Speake, Seb Rochford, James Allsopp, Asaf Sirkis, Sam Crockatt and Clark Tracey - and has played with Joe Locke, Gilad Atzmon, Empirical, Gerard Presencer, Stan Sulzman, Ian Ballamy, Peter Ind, Gwyneth Herbert, John Warren and Eugene Skeef. He has also performed with leading 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. He has also worked with up and coming Composer / Songwriter Micachu, with whome he recorded in Abbey Road for Matthew Herbert, recorded for BBC Radio 6 and played at the Sonar Music Festival ’07 in Barcelona. Kit’s work with Empirical has taken him to The North Sea Jazz Festival, The JVC Festivals in New York, Montreal and Newport, and Vancouver Jazz Festival. Empirical won ‘Best Album of the Year 2007’ in Jazzwise and the EBU Award at the North Sea Festival. Kit won the BBC ‘Rising Star’ Award in 2008 and was nominated for a British Jazz Award in both 2008 and 2009, he also won one of 'Yamaha Jazz Scolarship' Awards in 2009. Having been together since their first year at the Royal Academy of Music, the 'Kit Downes Trio' have been playing together since 2005. Their music concentrates on walking the fine line between improvisation and composition through an eclectic mix of influences. The band, featuring Calum Gourlay (Tommy Smith, Martin Speake, Tom Cawley) on bass and James Maddren (Marc Copland, Stan Sulzmann, Gwilym Simcock) on drums, has always been interested in making it's music accessible, whilst not sacrificing any of it's intellect - and doing so through new and original music. It has done this at the London Jazz Festival 2008 and 2009, Ronnie Scotts British Jazz Festival, Glasgow Jazz Festival and the Pizza Express Dean St, and although inspired by a wide range of influences, ranging from Bela Bartok to Keith Jarrett to Rufus Wainwright, endeavors to both celebrate the classic piano trio tradition as well as develop it. The trio will be touring through October 2009 and February 2010 to promote their forthcoming album 'Golden' (launching at the Pizza Express on the 14th September) released on Basho Records.
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