Printed From: JazzMusicArchives.com
Category: Jazz Music Lounges
Forum Name: Jazz Music News, Press Releases
Forum Description: Submit press releases, news , new releases, jazz music news and other interesting things happening in the world of jazz music (featured in home and artist page)
URL: http://www.JazzMusicArchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26830 Printed Date: 21 May 2024 at 8:02am Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 10.16 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Keith Tippett: British jazz pianist dies age 72Posted By: snobb
Subject: Keith Tippett: British jazz pianist dies age 72
Date Posted: 15 Jun 2020 at 11:50am
The
‘west country bloke with a great big heart’ collaborated with a wide
range of musicians from Louis Moholo-Moholo to Robert Wyatt
The British jazz pianist and composer Keith Tippett has died aged 72.
A post on Tippett’s official Facebook page did not disclose the cause
of death.
Tippett was known for his unique approach to improvisation and
prepared piano. He played in a number of adventurous, rhythmic jazz
formations, including Ovary Lodge, Ark and Mujician, and composed for
and performed with many leading contemporary classical groups. He
collaborated with musicians from the reclusive folk singer Shelagh
McDonald to exiled South African musicians such as Louis Moholo-Moholo.
In 2018, Tippett had a heart attack, which led to a debilitating form
of pneumonia. It left him unable to work for a period, during which his
contemporaries rallied to fundraise for him and his family. He returned
to live performance in early 2019.
David Sylvian, formerly of the pop group Japan, paid tribute to
Tippett for showing him “great generosity when I took my first tentative
steps towards sessions based on improvisation back in the early 90s”, https://twitter.com/davidsylvian58/status/1272272111327830016" rel="nofollow - he tweeted . “He forged an undeniably unique path wherever fortune happened to find him.”
Born in Bristol to a musical family, Tippett began his first forays
into jazz in that city before moving to London in 1967 and becoming a
core catalyst in the capital’s jazz scene. He formed the Keith Tippett
Sextet with saxophonist Elton Dean, trumpeter Mark Charig and trombonist
Nick Evans. They recorded their debut album, You Are Here, I Am There,
for Polydor in 1970.
After the group disbanded, Tippett continued to play with Dean in a
variety of formations, often as part of a revered rhythm section
featuring South African musicians Harry Miller and Louis Moholo-Moholo.
Keith Tippett performing at the Conservatorio Nino Rota, Monopoli, Italy, 13 December 2013 – video
Speaking to the Wire magazine in 1995, https://www.theguardian.com/music/robert-wyatt" rel="nofollow - Robert Wyatt ,
who collaborated with Tippett in his group Symbiosis, credited him with
bringing together prog rock, experimental jazz and exiled South African
musicians in the early 1970s, describing him as “a west country bloke
with a great big heart and completely unlike the old boy network jazz
mafia that was the London scene at the time”.
Wyatt said: “He had all barriers down, listened to everybody,
open-minded, never put anybody down, and one of his things was to get
all these different musicians from different genres together –
particularly the South African exiles. He would get together these bands
and get us into them and then we’d meet each other. So really you could
put a lot of that down to one man.”
In 1970, Tippett formed Centipede, the big band whose 50-strong
membership included progressive rock luminaries from King Crimson and
Soft Machine. Tippett would form a lasting relationship with King
Crimson, performing on their albums In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard and
Islands, and once appearing with the group on Top of the Pops to perform
their single Cat Food.
In a review for Let It Rock, critic Chris Salewicz wrote that
Tippett’s playing was so essential to Lizard and Poseidon, “it is almost
an insult that he should be relegated to the role of featured player”.
Tippett, however, had declined an invitation from Robert Fripp to join
the band. His style was considered influential on Mike Garson’s playing
on https://www.theguardian.com/music/davidbowie" rel="nofollow - David Bowie ’s 1973 album Aladdin Sane.
In 1981, he formed the group Mujician with Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers
and Tony Levin, named for his then five-year-old daughter’s assessment
of her father’s job. https://www.cyclicdefrost.com/2016/12/keith-tippett-mujician-interview-by-tony-mitchell/" rel="nofollow - Tippett recalled :
“[She] was asked on one of her first days at school, ‘What does your
father do?’ and she said ‘mujician’ which was really cute, and it
conjures up this image of a magician and a musician.”
Tippett often performed with his wife, the experimental vocalist
Julie Tippetts (née Driscoll) . With Brian Auger and the Trinity, she
had a hit in 1967 with a cover of Bob Dylan’s This Wheel’s on Fire. The
pair fell in love while working together on Driscoll’s solo album, 1969
(released in 1971).
The London experimental music venue Cafe Oto described the couple as
“among the most important European jazz musicians (improvisers,
composers, arrangers) in the last 40 years”.
https://www.cyclicdefrost.com/2016/12/keith-tippett-mujician-interview-by-tony-mitchell/" rel="nofollow - In a 2016 interview ,
Tippett attributed many of his wide-ranging collaborations to the
simple fact of friendship and wanting to play with his contemporaries.
In 2019, he told the Morning Star that he lived by the ethos: “May music
never become just another way of making money.” His most recent album
was 2018’s Live in Triest.
from www.theguardian.com
Keith Tippett, a British pianist who contributed to three early https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/king-crimson/" rel="nofollow - King Crimson records, has died at the age of 72.
The cause of death was undisclosed, but https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/15/keith-tippett-british-jazz-pianist-dies-age-72" rel="nofollow - The Guardian 's
obituary reports that Tippett had a heart attack in 2018 that left him
with a "debilitating form of pneumonia." He recovered and resumed live
performances in 2019.
Born in Bristol, England, on Aug. 25, 1947,
Tippett started playing jazz piano as a teenager before moving to London
in 1967 to pursue his musical career. He established himself in
London's jazz scene, releasing his debut as a bandleader, You Are Here, I Am There, in 1970.
That same year, he performed on three tracks on King Crimson's https://ultimateclassicrock.com/king-crimson-in-the-wake-of-poseidon/" rel="nofollow - In the Wake of Poseidon - "Cadence and Cascade," "Cat Food" and the instrumental suite "The Devil's Triangle" - and its follow-up LP, https://ultimateclassicrock.com/king-crimson-lizard/" rel="nofollow - Lizard . He reportedly declined https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/robert-fripp/" rel="nofollow - Robert Fripp 's invitation to join the band.
Around
this time, Tippett formed Centipede - a 50-piece ensemble comprised of
progressive rock, jazz and classical musicians - in order to perform his
four-part, 85-minute suite "Septober Energy." After they
played throughout Europe, the piece was recorded for a 1971 release,
with production work by Fripp. Tippett's final King Crimson sessions
came later in 1971 with Islands.
While Tippett primarily
continued to work in jazz on his own projects and as a sideman, he
occasionally crossed paths with the prog world. In 1975, he played on a
rock version of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf that also featured https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/phil-collins/" rel="nofollow - Phil Collins , https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/gary-moore/" rel="nofollow - Gary Moore , Bill Bruford of https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/yes/" rel="nofollow - Yes and https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/brian-eno/" rel="nofollow - Brian Eno .
Tippett occasionally enlisted another King Crimson member, https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/tony-levin/" rel="nofollow - Tony Levin ,
for several of his projects, including a 1984 septet album and a
free-form jazz group called Mujician that was named after his
five-year-old daughter's description of his job.