Keith Tippett – pianist,
composer, improvisor
Born August 25, 1947:
died June 14, 2020
Keith Tippett, who has
died aged 72, was a musical force of nature, whose free-thinking improvised
piano meditations went beyond any perceived notions of jazz to take it
somewhere else entirely. Tippett did this over fifty years, leading ensembles
of all sizes and playing solo in a series of concerts that pushed his
instrument’s limits while retaining a spirited playfulness at its heart.
Tippett was one of a
generation of British musicians who arrived on the late 1960s London scene when
anything seemed possible. While rooted in jazz in its broadest sense, Tippett
moved between the prog of King Crimson, with whom he appeared on Top of the
Pops, to the 1980s nouveau jazz of Weekend and Working Week. Inbetween, he
appeared on an all-star Rock Peter and the Wolf alongside the likes of Stephane
Grappelli, Brian Eno and Phil Collins.
These were diversions,
however, from a singular life-long utopian romance with music. Despite the
technical brilliance and occasional wildness of his compositions, his work
possessed a lyricism and a warmth that expressed a deeply-felt desire to
connect, both with other musicians and audiences.
Forever attired in the
downbeat elegance of corduroy jackets and tweed waist-coats, and sporting
mutton-chop sideburns that seemed to take up half of his leonine face, Tippett
cut a genial dash offstage. Once he started playing, his energy channelled
something profound. While he could bang it out with the best of his free jazz contemporaries,
for all its intensity, Tippett’s approach was more holistic and delicately
nuanced.
This was laid bare most
clearly in his collaborations with Julie Tippetts, his wife and musical partner
who, after scoring a pop hit as Julie Driscoll in partnership with Brian Auger
on a cover of Bob Dylan’s This Wheel’s on Fire, moved into similarly
exploratory waters. As Couple in Spirit, the Tippett/Tippetts duos were
transcendent affairs that fused Tippetts’ wordless vocals and Tippett’s
percussive piano playing to become not so much an extension of their
relationship as an intuitive expression of its soul.
Keith Graham Tippetts
(he later dropped the ‘s’) was born in Southmead, Bristol, the oldest of three
children to an English father, Patrick, and Irish mother, Kitty. As a child he
was a chorister, and played piano and church organ before forming a trad jazz
combo aged fourteen. He later updated his sound after hearing Miles Davis, and
played at Bristol’s legendary Dugout club.
Moving to London when
barely out of his teens was a musical pilgrimage for Tippett, though he quickly
discovered the city’s jazz clubs, like its streets, weren’t lined with gold.
Things changed after he won a scholarship to attend the Barry Summer School
Jazz Course in Wales, where he met saxophonist Elton Dean, trombonist Nick
Evans and trumpeter Mark Charig. These formed the nucleus of Tippett’s first
group, whose residency at the 100 Club led to two albums, You Are There… I Am
Here (1970) and Dedicated to You, But You Weren’t Listening (1971).
After declining to join
King Crimson full-time, Tippett formed Centipede, a 50-piece orchestra that
brought together the new generation of out-there jazzers with members of The Soft
Machine, King Crimson and Blossom Toes. While a sole album, Septober Energy,
was released, Tippett would later return to big bands with Ark and
his Tapestry Orchestra as part of an ever-expanding network of collaborations.
There were small groups,
such as Ovary Lodge, duos with fellow pianist Stan Tracey, The Dartington
Improvising Trio with Tippetts and saxophonist Paul Dunmall and assorted
septets and octets. There was too his piano and strings ensemble, Linuckea.
Then there was Mujician,
originally the name given to solo concert releases following his daughter’s
insightful mis-pronunciation of his job title. Mujician later became the name
of the improvising quartet formed with Dunmall, bassist Paul Rogers and drummer
Tony Levin, with six albums released under that name.
Tippett also taught at
the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Dartington College of Arts,
nurturing new generations of musicians to think and play as freely as he did.
Tippett’s infrequent
visits to Scotland included a 1990 appearance at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh
with saxophonist Andy Sheppard on the back of the duo’s 66 Shades of Lipstick
album. In the mid-noughties, he performed at the CCA in Glasgow, and
collaborated with the George Burt/Raymond MacDonald Sextet on two albums, A Day
for a Reason (2005) and Boohoo Fever (2006), both recorded at An Tobar Arts
Centre on Mull.
Alongside the re-release
of Tippett’s first solo opus, The Unlonely Rain Dancer (1980), recent work included
The Nine Dances of Patrick O’Gonogon (2015), inspired by his mother, Mujician
IV (2015), his first solo album for fifteen years, and A Mid Autumn’s Night’s
Dream (2019), recorded with Tippetts in Italy. At the time of his passing,
a subscription-based support for a new studio-based Couple in Spirit album was
ongoing.
In 2018, Tippett’s
activities were curtailed by a heart attack and pneumonia. He returned to live
work by way of a series of concerts with fellow pianist Matthew Bourne, and
with Tippetts and Dunmall at the Vortex in London. Both saw Tippett continue to
push boundaries with a rich depth of feeling that defined a half-century that
was more quest than career. Since his death, a campaign to rename the
Colston Hall in Bristol as the Keith Tippett Hall has attracted almost 2,000
signatories.
Tippett is survived by
Tippetts, their children, Inca and Luke, the couple’s grand-children, and
Tippett’s brothers, Clive and Thomas.
The Herald, June 22nd, 2020
ends
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