Sam Norris - Alto Saxophone

Kit Downes - Piano

Freddie Jensen - Double Bass

Harry Ling - Drums

Kit Downes is a BBC Jazz Award winning, Mercury Music Award nominated solo recording artist for ECM Records. He has toured the world playing piano, church organ and harmonium with his own bands (‘ENEMY’, ‘Troyka’ and ‘Elt’) as well as with artists such as Squarepusher, Bill Frisell, ‘Empirical‘, Andrew Cyrille, Sofia Jernberg, Benny Greb, Mica Levi and Sam Amidon.

Kit performs solo pipe organ and solo piano concerts – as well as playing in collaborations with saxophonist Tom Challenger, cellist Lucy Railton, composer Shiva Feshareki, saxophonist Ben van Gelder and with the band ‘ENEMY’ (with Petter Eldh and James Maddren).

Tonight, Kit will be joined for a special concert at the Vortex by three powerful forces in the young UK jazz scene- Sam Norris on alto saxophone (Ronan Guilfoyle, Tom Challenger), Freddie Jensen on double bass (Laura Jurd, Joe Farnsworth) and Harry Ling on drums (Alex Hitchcock, Shirley Tetteh). They will perform free-flowing original compositions written by Kit and Sam, as well as favourite pieces by composers such as Paul Bley and Sam Rivers.