Kit Downes

“Light From Old Stars”

(Basho Records SRCD 42-2)

Keyboard player and composer exploded onto the UK jazz scene in 2009 with the release of “Golden”, his recording début as a leader. Featuring Downes on piano plus his regular trio of double bassist Calum Gourlay and drummer James Maddren the album was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize gaining Downes an extraordinary amount of publicity (in jazz terms at least).

Downes had already cut his teeth with young jazz “supergroup” Empirical and coped well with the extra attention that came his way. He was only 22 at the time of the Mercury nomination and much has been made of him having to do his musical “growing up” in public. However Downes seems to have taken it in his stride, raising his game for big festival appearances such as Cheltenham. A serial collaborator he has turned up in all sorts of contexts from his piano/drums duo with Seb Rochford to playing organ with the trios Troyka and Golden Age Of Steam,and accompanying cutting edge singers such as Sarah Gillespie and Alice Zawadzki. Besides his membership of saxophonist Stan Sulzmann’s Neon Quartet he is also a key member of the Anglo-French collaborative quartet Barbacana who recently released an eponymous début on Babel Records and appeared at the 2013 Cheltenham Jazz Festival.

Meanwhile Downes has increased his regular working band to a quintet, retaining the services of Gourlay and Maddren and adding the reeds of his Golden Age Of Steam colleague James Allsopp plus the cello of Lucy Railton. A similar line up appeared on Downes’ second album, 2011’s superb “Quiet Tiger” which featured his multi instrumentalist Barbacana colleague Adrien Dennefeld on cello in place of Railton. To these ears “Quiet Tiger”, with its more adventurous writing and wider range of textures was a better album than the more feted “Golden”. “Light From Old Stars” sees Downes consolidating Quiet Tiger’s musical success.

Downes’  performances have sometimes been accompanied by the visuals of animator Lesley Barnes. Her distinctive artwork graced the cover of “Quiet Tiger” and her charming imagery is again featured here. Both the music and the visuals for this latest album were inspired by Downes’ meeting at Cheltenham Science Festival with the astrobiologist Daniella Scalice (the pianist was appearing at the festival in one of his collaborations with Barnes). Downes became fascinated by Scalice’s concept that the light we see may come from stars that are already dead and that star gazing is “a form of time travel without moving”. Scalice’s liner notes for the album expand further upon her precept.

There is a second layer of meaning behind Downes’ choice of title, he readily acknowledges the influence of his musical forebears from jazz pianists such as Paul Bley and Jan Johansson to delta bluesmen like Skip James (a dedicatee on “Quiet Tiger”), Howlin’ Wolf and Blind Willie McTell. Downes regards the legacy of these masters as another form of “light from old stars”, with the word “star” taking on a different meaning and context. However Downes is no copyist, he uses these inspirations to create thoroughly contemporary music, refracting the “light” into new modern forms.

Opener “Wander and Colossus” represents a musical manifestation of Scalice’s ideas, developing from a spacey, ethereal intro to embrace, melody, groove, colour and texture. Scalice describes the cycle of a star as being a process of “building, growing, peaking, declining and ending”. All this can all be heard here, both in the rich, ensemble colours and in a typically sparkling Downes piano solo.

“Bleydays” tips the hat to Paul Bley and is a splendid merger of a hooky, bop inspired theme with knottier, improvised passages. For all the complexities there’s also a sense of joyousness, a spirit of “serious fun” that makes the piece a true celebration of Bley and his music. There’s a touch of Jarrett about Downes’ playing too and Allsopp takes the opportunity to briefly let rip on tenor sax.

Downes credits his Troyka colleague guitarist Chris Montague with introducing him to many aspects of the early blues. The infectious shuffle of “Outlawed” has been likened to a Bill Frisell theme and represents Downes’ homage to blues artists Skip James, Blind Willie McTell and Howlin’ Wolf (James got a dedication all to himself on “Quiet Tiger”). Downes rarely quotes the blues directly and rigorously avoids any suggestions of cliché. Instead he takes his blues influences and merges them with contemporary ideas, indeed parts of “Outlaw” sounds almost chamber like at times. Among the featured soloists is bassist Gourlay, his playing both muscular and melodic. Allsopp follows him on clarinet, the blues allusions now becoming more obvious.

Despite his respect for his antecedents Downes also has his eye on contemporary culture. The playful “What’s The Rumpus?” takes its title from a line of dialogue in the Coen Brothers film “Miller’s Crossing”. The piece includes an early feature for Maddren, a tumultuous solo from Downes and a series of tricky, unison ensemble passages as Allsopp and Railton test the ranges of their respective instruments.

Railton is one of the UK’s most accomplished cello improvisers and sometimes works in a free jazz context. She opens “Two Ones” with a passage of imaginative solo cello before being joined by Maddren’s subtly brushed grooves as the piece develops into a gently whimsical piece that Downes dedicates to himself and his girlfriend, electric bassist Ruth Goller.

“Falling Dancing” is a short, ballet inspired, acoustic piano passage (forty six seconds!) that serves as the intro to “Owls”, a piece inspired by the David Lynch TV drama “Twin Peaks”. Bustling, whimsical ensemble passages alternate with spookier episodes featuring Railton’s cello and Allsopp’s bass clarinet. It’s all appropriately “Lynchian”, indeed the cross referencing of art forms seems to be something of a mission drive for the irrepressible Downes.

Downes dedicates “The Mad Wren” to his group’s drummer (go on, you work it out) with the doomy cello and piano intro subsequently morphing into something more uplifting and song like with the ghost of early Keith Jarrett not too far away.

The late Swedish pianist Jan Johansson is widely credited as a pioneer of the folk strand of European jazz, a key inspiration for saxophonist Jan Garbarek and many others. Downes’ tribute to him, simply called “Jan Johansson” matches a melancholy, folk like melody with Maddren’s quietly insistent brushed hip hop grooves. Sepia tinged piano and cello timbres make for a fascinating contrast with Maddren’s implacable rhythms. It’s a superb example of the “Light fFom Old Stars” philosophy as Downes once again taps into the inspiration of past masters and moulds it into a thoroughly contemporary context. I remember this tune as being one of the highlights of the quintet’s performance in Brecon Cathedral as part of the 2012 Brecon Jazz Festival. 

“Light From Old Stars” represents an impressive artistic statement from Downes. There’s a growing maturity about the way he has drawn upon his wide range of influences, musical and otherwise, to create a unique ensemble sound that references everything from chamber music to the blues, there’s just so much going on here.
And despite Downes’ undoubted individual brilliance it’s the ensemble sound that is the key to the album’s success, the unusual blend of instruments benefiting greatly from Downes’ increasingly mature and assured writing. Everybody plays well and there are some superb individual moments, but notwithstanding the fact that it’s Downes’ name alone that graces the cover this is still a great team performance. 

   

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