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Reviewers: Tony Augarde [Editor], Steve Arloff, Nick Barnard, Pierre Giroux, Don Mather, James Poore, Glyn Pursglove, George Stacy, Bert Thompson, Sam Webster, Jonathan Woolf



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KIT DOWNES

Tricko

COUP PERDU RECORDS
CPCD003

 

 

1.Jinn

2.Alliri

3.Waira

4.Tricko

5.Ihno

6.Arkane

7.Helkalen


Kit Downes (piano), Lucy Railton (cello)

All compositions by Kit Downes

rec. tracks 1,3,5 at University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, tracks 2,6 at St.George’s in the East, Shadwell, UK and tracks 4,7 at St.Paul’s, Huddersfield, UK. [41:41]


What a refreshingly different disc this is which confirms Kit Downes (Mercury Music Award Nominee 2010, BBC Jazz Award Winner 2009) as the great jazz innovator he has shown himself to be from the word go. While a duo of piano and cello may not have an immediate appeal the listener will surely be hooked as soon as they hear it which once again proves that it pays to have no preconceptions for this is chamber jazz at its very best. All the tunes are by Downes and there is clearly an overarching theme running through them which, even if he wasn’t aware of it which he surely was, goes beyond his statement that he didn’t allow himself to feel forced to finish the compositions instead simply allowing them to evolve over time and find their own natural conclusions. Clues may be found in each tune’s title but if so they’re not obvious to me. I wholeheartedly agree with The Guardian’s John Fordham who wrote that the disc is “A testament to Downes’s quirky talent for making difficult music sound natural”. Lucy Railton’s cello is beautifully measured with a precise articulation that, together with Downes’s magical piano, has the music exert a hypnotic compulsion to hit the repeat button over and over again with the result that once heard the disc will be difficult to put back on your CD shelves.

Steve Arloff

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