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Kate Williams

Jazz pianist/composer Kate Williams was born in London into a musical family (her father is the guitarist John Williams, her mother a classical pianist). A recipient of the John Dankworth Award For Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, she has gained a distinctive reputation as both a writer and performer. She has released several previous CDs, each one to critical acclaim, including Made Up (with her septet) and Smoke And Mirrors (with tenor legend Bobby Wellins). Both were in Mojo magazine's top ten jazz albums in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Kate's latest album Atlas And Vulcana is a further reflection of her colourful originality as a pianist/composer/arranger. With pieces for trio, quartet and septet, this new release is an album of contrasts which features some of the finest musicians on the UK jazz scene: 

Kate was featured at the Pizza Express Steinway 2-Piano Festival in 2010, 2011 and 2013 (with Robin Aspland and Nikki Iles respectively), with two of the concerts being broadcast on Radio 3’s Jazz Line Up.

In March 2014, she and conductor William Goodchild co-founded Interplay Series: Bill Evans And The Impressionists, a project featuring new arrangements of Bill Evans tunes alongside works by Ravel and Debussy for trio and orchestra. The first two performances were at the Bristol International Jazz Festival and the Guildhall Jazz Festival. www.interplayseries.com

She is a member of Chris Biscoe’s Mingus Moves, has recorded with vocalists Georgia Mancio (for whom she has also composed and arranged) and Juliet Kelly, as well as performing with many other leading UK artists including Tina May, Henry Lowther, Jim Mullen, John Etheridge, Stan Sulzmann, Julian Siegel, Tim Whitehead and Karen Sharp.

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Album Review

Chris Biscoe: Music Is: Chris Biscoe Plays Mike Westbrook

Read "Music Is: Chris Biscoe Plays Mike Westbrook" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Chris Biscoe can trade choruses with the best and melt the heart with the tenderest of ballads. But that is not what makes him special. Live and on record there is always a sense of quiet anticipation as he starts a solo. One knows one is about to hear something new, something different. It is more than his mastery of a range of woodwinds. It is more than the wonderful tone he achieves seemingly effortlessly on each of his instruments--powerful, ...

10
Album Review

Chris Biscoe: Music Is: Chris Biscoe Plays Mike Westbrook

Read "Music Is: Chris Biscoe Plays Mike Westbrook" reviewed by Chris May


Chris Biscoe has played in the bands led by the great British composer Mike Westbrook and/or his wife, singer and lyricist Kate Westbrook, every year since 1979 bar one. He is the Westbrooks' first-call saxophonist and clarinetist and the love runs both ways. It also rings out on every track of this beautiful album. The concept is straightforward. Biscoe has taken seven Westbrook pieces out of their original, mostly big band, contexts and arranged them for a ...

5
Album Review

Kate Williams: Four Plus Three

Read "Four Plus Three" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Pianist Kate Williams seems to be fond of septets: Four Plus Three is her third septet album after Made Up (kwjazz, 2011) and Atlas & Vulcana (kwjazz, 2014). Of course, there are other albums in her discography, including the excellent Smoke & Mirrors duo recording with saxophonist Bobby Wellins (kwjazz, 2012), but the seven-piece ensemble seems to suit the breadth of her ambition. This particular combo--piano, drums and strings, brings a new set of musical possibilities to Williams' originals and ...

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Album Review

Kate Williams: Atlas & Vulcana

Read "Atlas & Vulcana" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Atlas and Vulcana formed a strongman and strongwoman act--Vulcana's real name was Kate Williams--whose feats of strength were renowned in Victorian and early twentieth century Britain. Pianist and composer Kate Williams (no relation, presumably) takes inspiration from the couple in titling this album and two of its tracks. Atlas & Vulcana has its own strengths--no brute force, but plenty of power and dynamism. Williams has written some stunning tunes: she's also brought together a septet of some of the finest ...

5
Album Review

Kate Williams Septet: Made Up

Read "Made Up" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Made Up is the fourth album from British composer/pianist Kate Williams. Her previous albums have featured trio, quartet and quintet lineups; Made Up leapfrogs the sextet setup to feature a seven-piece group of top flight UK musicians who prove to be superb interpreters of Williams' brightly original compositions.Made Up was released in the UK at the end of 2011: a few months later the group was nominated for a 2012 Parliamentary Jazz Award for Ensemble Of The Year, ...

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"British pianist/composer Kate Williams makes the kind of jazz albums few younger players attempt these days, let alone pull off with such aplomb – full of graceful storytelling themes and uptempo swing, delicate piano breaks glowing with a Bill Evans hue, bebop horn solos over nimble walking grooves. This is an elegant set of originals for her classy septet, including the flute virtuoso Gareth Lockrane and powerful tenor saxist Alex Garnett. The memorable title track appears in both trio and septet versions, the former opening on an almost Maiden Voyage-like chordal undertow, before pursuing Williams’s patiently wayward melody. Her cool, shapely and sometimes nimbly mischievous writing constantly informs this set – with uptempo tracks such as Duped shifting from a clipped, brightly ascending horn theme to a series of slick solos over walking grooves, tone-poems such as the beautiful Moonset, featuring Gil Evans-like sound mists, and the haunting Ballad for Mr H making full use of Lockrane’s lustrous bass-flute sound...Williams’s lyricism, polish and subtle touch make this one of her most accomplished and personal ventures." John Fordham, The Guardian, 7th November 2014

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Primary Instrument

Piano

Location

London

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Currently teaching at Middlesex University and Guildhall School Of Music And Drama.

Photos

Music

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