Kit Downes - The Big Picture
Friday, February 25, 2011
For his first album since his widely praised release Golden, pianist Kit Downes has expanded his trio, looking for a more expansive sound and new direction.
It’s a brave move by a pianist who is rarely content to keep to a set formula in his approach to jazz. Interview; Selwyn Harris
Kit Downes was at the mercy of Britain’s giddy pop press the last time he was being interviewed. “People asked me about my beard so many times I was embarrassed. They just couldn’t think of anything else to say,” says the 24-year-old pianist-composer, who hasn’t taken a razor to it in protest although the hair on top of his head is now quite a bit shorter and smarter.
Downes is talking about a period in which an extremely rare national spotlight falls on a jazz musician, the time of the Mercury Music Prize. He was shortlisted last year for his piano trio (featuring the rhythm section of bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer James Maddren) for the debut CD Golden. Weirdy-beardy jazz clichés aside, the degree of separation between the ‘token’ jazz entry and the rest of the pack was more acute than in recent years with Downes’ understated, reflective acoustic music being one of the cooler – or ‘prettier’ as TV pop pundit Miranda Sawyer put it – jazz nominations in recent years.
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