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Artist
Django Bates
12+ albums
jazzpianocontemporary jazzcomposerengland
about
Django Bates (born 2nd October 1960 in Beckenham, Kent, United Kingdom) is a composer and virtuoso multi-instrumentalist. He plays the piano, keyboards and the tenor horn. He is widely regarded as one the most creative musicians in the world. Bates rose to prominence in Loose Tubes, a jazz orchestra which was considered the U.K.'s most exciting and inspirational groups in the 1980s. It played a key role in re-energising the British jazz scene. Bates founded his small group Human Chain in 1979. He formed his own nineteen-piece jazz orchestra Delightful Precipice in 1991. He also put together the Powder Collapse Orchestra, which recorded Music for the Third Policeman, and Circus Umbilicus, a true circus cum musical project. In addition to his work as a leader, Bates has been prominently featured as a sideman as a member of Dudu Pukwana's Zila, Tim Whitehead's Borderline, Ken Stubbs' First House, Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Sidsel Endresen and in the bands of George Russell and George Gruntz. He has performed alongside Michael Brecker, Tim Berne, Christian Jarvi, Vince Mendoza, David Sanborn, Kate Rusby and Don Alias. In recent years, Bates has concentrated on writing large scale compositions on commission. These include Dream Kitchen for percussionist Evelyn Glennie, Fine Frenzy for the Shobhana Jeyasingh Dance Company, and a piano concerto for Joanna MacGregor and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra entitled What It's Like to be Alive. He also wrote the first ever concerto for
