Award-winning vocalist and producer Lucia Cadotsch’s newest musical guise is AKI, a quartet of some of the most brilliant and distinctive voices working in contemporary jazz. Together they explore their mutual love of undiscovered song in intimate chamber contexts. Lucia Cadotsch is creating an affecting debut album, full of robust musicianship and emotive compositions anchored by her somnambulant lyrical explorations of her experience as a leading female bandleader in contemporary jazz.

Lucia Cadotsch (voice), Phil Donkin (Double Bass), Kit Downes (piano, organ), James Maddren (Drums)

Three of Europe’s most forward thinking jazz musicians (Reinier Baas, Kit Downes & Jonas Burgwinkel) join forces with Deadeye, a brand new jazz supergroup. Deadeye uses the tried and tested formula of Hammond organ, drums and guitar to shed new light on the wildly diverse influences of its members. “On this album Kit Downes takes a different approach, with his playing on the Hammond much less dominant in the overall sound and much more integrated with the other two musicians, Dutch guitarist Reinier Baas and German drummer Jonas Burgwinkel. The resulting album is a nicely varied set of music with excellent interaction between the three musicians.” (London Jazz News) It is a wide musical scope, in which Jazzrock, traditional British folk music and 20th-century Classical music are unified. Although all three of its members share a love for improvisation and the unexpected, they each bring something deeply personal to the table: ethereal textures, undulating yet highly danceable rhythms and angular melodies.

Reinier Baas (guitar), Jonas Burgwinkel (drums), Kit Downes (piano, organ)

Kit Downes is critically regarded as one of the UK`s outstanding jazz talents and this latest recording Obsidian, a unique collection sounds and colours, could have only been made by an improviser of subtle sensibilities. Some of Downes ‘earliest musical experiences were as a church organist and in recent years he has been exploring it`s sonic possibilities and idiosyncrasies, in improvisations and compositions both melodic and textural.
Downes is bringing a new and highly personal approach to an instrument steeped in history and tradition – a tradition that he loves but is seeking to explore and abstract.

Kit Downes (piano, organ)