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Django Bates: Tenacity
by Pat Youngspiel
Few jazz artists go to such great lengths to make their audience feel at the same time bewildered by humor-infused technical exhaustion and smitten by charm and sheer musical beauty as Django Bates does. The English pianist and composer has gained a reputation over the years, for bringing the quirkiest and widest range of ideas and styles to a, more or less, aesthetically-serious art form. Some might even claim he's the Frank Zappa of jazz. Then again, who's to say ...
read moreDjango Bates: Tenacity
by John Kelman
It's been a long time since that late May, 2013 week in Luleå, Sweden, where pianist Django Bates and his Belovèd Trio first collaborated with the renowned Norrbotten Big Band. Fully documented in the All About Jazz article Django Bates: From Zero to Sixty in Five Days, Bates, bassist Petter Eldh and drummer Peter Bruun, along with other non-Norrbotteners, including guitarist Markus Pesonen, tubaist Daniel Herskedal and trombonist/vocalist Ashley Slater, made the lengthy trek to this small coastal town, located ...
read moreDjango Bates Beloved: Confirmation
by John Kelman
In the jazz world, groups often convene for special projects, though, more often than not, the participants then usually go their separate ways, even if the underlying concept- -or, even, just the band's chemistry--suggests further continuance. When Django Bates put together Belovèd Bird (Lost Marble, 2010), it seemed likely that the maverick British pianist, composer and foundation shaker's off-the-wall tribute to bebop progenitor/saxophonist Charlie “Bird" Parker would be a one-off. Now, two years later, Confirmation finds the same trio back ...
read moreLoose Tubes: Sad Afrika
by John Kelman
Loose TubesSäd AfrikaLost Marble2012With virtually none of its discography available on CD--and the only one, Open Letter (EG, 1988), shamefully out-of-print--it's no mean accomplishment that Britain's Loose Tubes has remained, if not exactly legendary, then at least firmly etched into the minds of those aware of them. Of course, any group that was the breeding ground for a number of now-significant British jazzsters--not limited to, but including keyboardist Django Bates, saxophonists Iain ...
read moreDjango Bates Beloved: Beloved Bird
by Bruce Lindsay
Django Bates claims that he heard Charlie Parker records on the day he was born. Fifty years later, Bates has formed Belovèd, giving life to his longstanding love for Parker's music on his trio's debut, Belovèd Bird. It's an album that ably demonstrates how love means never having to play in the same old way, for this sparklingly inventive album is not a retread of old Parker arrangements, but a reappraisal of the sound--a reconstruction based on Bates' strongly-held belief ...
read moreLoose Tubes: Dancing On Frith Street
by Bruce Lindsay
Twenty years after the legendary Loose Tubes played its final gigs, Dancing On Frith Street, a live album taken from those valedictory performances at London's Ronnie Scott's Club in September 1990, offers a chance for jazz fans of a certain age to reminisce, and an opportunity for those who missed the band's performances the first time around to check out its live sound. Thankfully, this superbly produced, atmospheric and exciting album enhances the band's reputation. It should also bring it ...
read moreDjango Bates: Spring Is Here (Shall We Dance?)
by Chris May
One of the true visionary geniuses of British--and indeed all--modern jazz, keyboardist and composer Django Bates is a shaman and synapse twister with a breathtakingly imaginative take on the traditions and structures he recalibrates. His energy is iconoclastic but also sunny and effervescent and benign, shot through with humor and relish of the absurd. His ideas are big and he particularly excels when writing for big bands, two of which--Loose Tubes and Delightful Precipice--have led joyful rococo revolutions on the ...
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