Bob Downes
Robert George 'Bob' Downes (born 22 July 1937 in Plymouth) is an English avant-garde jazz flautist and saxophonist. He is probably best known for his work with musicians such as Mike Westbrook, and for leading his own group since 1968, the Open Music Trio who released a series of LPs on Downes' own Openian record label.
About Bob Downes -
Composer, Musician, Arranger, Songwriter, Jazz -Rock & Blues Singer (but also composes and performs meditative music)
Bob Downes plays circa 25 Instruments (his main instruments are Saxes and Flutes).
His first LP was released with Philips Records, 1969.
He was voted N°1 Jazz flautist, formed various music ensembles and also was the first to create his own independent Record Label “Openian”.
He played with “The John Barry 7” band (James Bond Film composer), Pop Singer Chris Andrews, "Manfred Mann’s Earth Band" and with the Jimmy Nicol Band (Stand-in Drummer of the Beatles).
In 1968 Bob formed his OPEN MUSIC TRIO. Bass players that played in it were Barry Guy, Barre Philips, Jeff Clyne, Daryl Runswick, Paul Bridge, Harry Miller, Marc Meggido. Recently: Andrew Cleyndert and Glen Moore. Bob played and recorded with Ray Russell's Rock Workshop (whose artist's name by the way, was created for him by Bob),and singers such as Elke Brooks, Alex Harvey and Julie Driscoll.
In the 70..s Bob was a member of Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra.
He also played with the Mike Westbrook Band and the Keith Tippett Band.
Bob Downes had and still has world-wide success in composing for modern dance, for example: The Royal Ballet, The London Contemporary Dance Theatre (with whom he composed and played live with between 1972 / 82) Ballet Rambert, Dance Theatre of Harlem (N.Y.), The Royal Canadian Ballet, Australian Dance Company, Miami World Ballet, Komische Oper Berlin, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Hongkong Ballet.
He composed for the Cambridge Theatre Company.
He also composed for and performed with the Swiss mime group “Mummenschanz” for T.V. Productions.
Bob Downes has performed as a highlight on Poetry festivals in Amsterdam, Paris and Rome with artists like William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
On Diversions Downes played concert, alto & Chinese bamboo flutes, and tenor sax. Five of the eight pieces are trios with double bass (Barry Guy and Jeff Clyne) and drums (Denis Smith). The other three pieces are solos: on "Samurai" Downes played concert and alto flutes into a piano with the sustain pedal pressed down to give a tuned resonance, and on "The Dream" a slow disjunct melody reminiscent of the interwar Viennese school on concert flute over an eerie white noise rich VCS3 synthesiser soundscape played by Laurie Baker. The trios have the texture of (then) modern jazz, but the improvisation is melodic rather than harmonic and both the flute and (particularly Barry Guy's) double bass veer off into European Classical avant garde territory. In 2007 Diversions was re-released by Vocalion.
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Wikipedia