Jazz Articles about Bob Downes

About Bob Downes

Album Review

Bob Downes Open Music: Let Your Mind...Space Out

Read "Let Your Mind...Space Out" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
August 31, 2017

Any CD release by Bob Downes is a significant event but the psych-entitled Let Your Mind...Space Out is important because it also celebrates the 80th birthday of this virtuoso jazz multi-instrumentalist. It's hard to credit that Downes, like his contemporaries Mike Westbrook and Mike Gibbs has now achieved octogenarian status, given that his early oeuvre was populated by freewheeling jazz rock albums such as Electric City and Deep Down Heavy, both released in 1970. But Downes also made ...

Album Review

Bob Downes Open Music: It's A Mystery

Read "It's A Mystery" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
March 31, 2017

Pursuing his self-styled Open Music route, multi-instrumentalist Bob Downes treads a very thin and courageous line between written jazz and total improvisation. Of his many recordings, some funky jazz rock, others wholly extemporized, there are several which involve organised pieces evolving into often lengthy improvisations. It's A Mystery (not to be confused with the pop song by punk star Toyah Willcox) contains archival previously unreleased recordings spanning the length of his career from the early 1970s onwards. The ...

Album Review

Bob Downes Open Music: Blowin' With Bass

Read "Blowin' With Bass" reviewed by Claudio Bonomi

by Claudio Bonomi
June 2, 2016

Bob Downes, compositore e polistrumentista britannico, estrae dal proprio magic box un'altra chicca che farà fellce gli appassionati di jazz, o meglio, di British Jazz. Il movimento che, a partire della fine degli anni Sessanta, produsse un pimpante manipolo di musicisti-pionieri che ancora oggi calcano le scene internazionali come Evan Parker, John Surman, Keith Tippett, John Marshall, Ray Russell e altri. Tra i protagonisti di quella scena, che aveva il suo epicentro a Londra, c'era anche un ...

Album Review

Bob Downes: Bob Downes and The Alphorn Brothers

Read "Bob Downes and The Alphorn Brothers" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
December 26, 2015

This surely must be one of the strangest team-ups in jazz? A trio of German alpine horn players and British expatriate and jazz phenomenon Bob Downes. It may be an unconventional alliance, but somehow this album works at a very convincing level. Recorded in 2004 in his adopted home country of Germany, Downes wrote and arranged all the music and lyrics presented here. The almost surreal photomontage cover enhances the attractiveness of the CD but gives no adequate clue as ...

Album Review

Bob Downes: Deep Down Heavy

Read "Deep Down Heavy" reviewed by Vic Albani

by Vic Albani
April 16, 2014

Quando AAJ mi ha spedito questo CD, non volevo credere che sarebbe stato possibile arrivare alla ristampa di uno dei CD più particolari, curiosi e per certi versi assurdi pubblicati nell'ormai lontano 1970. Fu un anno davvero particolare per la musica europea che, sin dai primi mesi, dimostrò di credere seriamente a una sorta di “cambio del decennio." I Beatles stavano per annunciare ufficialmente alla stampa il loro scioglimento. I Nucleus di Ian Carr chiesero alla particolarmente creativa Vertigo (label ...

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Album Review

Bob Downes Open Music: New York Suite

Read "New York Suite" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 20, 2011

British flautist/saxophonist Bob Downes recorded some compelling albums in the early '70s and then, coinciding with his permanent relocation to Germany at the end of the decade, disappeared from the UK jazz scene. The music didn't stop with his migration though, as he subsequently produced several solo flute albums for his own label, Openian. In this archival recording from 1979 recorded in London, Downes augments his usual trio into a quintet with the addition of the late trombonist ...

Album Review

Bob Downes Open Music: 5 Trios

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 22, 2011

Forse pochi ricordano Bob Downes, il virtuoso del flauto, polistrumentista e compositore. Fece parlare di sè nella prima metà degli anni Settanta per le sue pirotecniche incursioni, sotto il nome di Bob Downes Open Music, nei generi più disparati, incrociando le sue ance con la musica d'avanguardia e l'elettronica, anticipando movimenti che negli anni successivi si sarebbero rivelati di tendenza e commercialmente lucrosi quali l'ambient, la musica meditativa o il folk jazz d'ispirazione orientale. Qualcuno lo ha definito la risposta ...