This month: Django Bates
Pianist and composer Django Bates was something of an enfant terrible when he burst onto a sleepy London jazz scene in 1981. A founder member of the (musically) anarchic 21-piece big band Loose Tubes, the South Londoner’s personality and music had a punky energy that startled the old guard.
Looking back on his 40 years in the business, and the wildly different projects he’s been involved in since Loose Tubes, he counts himself lucky: ‘A lot of artists feel they can’t afford to experiment for fear of losing people along the way. I was brought up to believe that if you are going to be an artist you have to do exactly what comes to mind and leave the justification to others.’
After so much stellar work as leader, sideman and composer (last year he added the Ivors Jazz Award to his accolades),
‘A lot of artists feel they can’t afford to experiment for fear of losing people’
Bates’s credibility is no longer in doubt even among purists. It’s helped that he regularly returns to the music of his first and most indelible influence, Charlie Parker (a recording of Bird’s ‘My Little Suede Shoes’ was playing in the room as he was born). What is it about the saxophonist’s music that appeals? ‘Parker plays really complex phrases and like a bird – you can’t easily write it down, but a child can appreciate it.’
Bates’s new studio album Tenacity is a commission from north Sweden’s Norrbotten Big Band, and marks the 100th anniversary of the bebop pioneer’s birth. Already immersed in Parker arrangements for his long-standing Belovèd trio, Bates welcomed the chance to experiment on a larger canvas: ‘Writing for a larger ensemble is not about making more layers of information – you have more possibilities in terms of textures and sounds.’
Professor of jazz at Bern University of the Arts in Switzerland since 2011, Bates is relieved to see live music returning, for his students’ and for concert goers’ sake: ‘I’m impressed by how people kept music going by playing online. But it was depressing to listen to because it didn’t work in the same way: two instruments playing together causes a third magical instrument to be created. You can’t achieve that online.’ Garry Booth