Denys Baptiste's Triumvirate will be performing at the Kings Place Festival 2012 on Thursday 13 September at 7.30pm. Tickets are only £4.50 and you can order them here.

Playing right before them are the Tomorrow's Warriors Youth Jazz Orchestra who are onstage at 6.15pm. Tickets are also £4.50 and there's more information here.

Kings Place is at 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG. Box Office: 020 7520 1490.

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Moses Boyd    photo: Adam Sieff

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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Friday 23 December   Clore Ballroom Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX

5.30pm - 7.00pm  Free Admission

Denys Baptiste, Andrew McCormack, Gary Crosby and Rod Youngs play a Christmas Friday Tonic at the Southbank with special guest Juliet Roberts, ending a wonderful 12 months of jazz in the best possible way....we'll see you there! 

Photo: Ben Amure

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The Denys Baptiste Quartet recorded at the 2011 London Jazz Festival by BBC Radio 3 Jazz Line-Up.

Denys_Baptiste_at_LJF.mp3 Listen on Posterous

1. Evolution from Revolution (Denys Baptiste)

2. Lennox Avenue Breakdown (Arthur Blythe)

3. Dance of the Maquiritari (Denys Baptiste)

Personnel: Denys Baptiste - tenor saxophone / Nick Ramm - piano / Gary Crosby - double bass / Rod Youngs - drums

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The Denys Baptiste Quartet take to the road for more dates in support of their recent release Identity By Subtraction. Alongside Denys are his trusty cohorts Gary Crosby - double bass, Rod Youngs - drums and pianist Andrew McCormack.

Tickets and venue information for Wakefield here.

12 November Clore Ballroom 20 min set for BBC Radio Jazz Line-Up from 4.00 - 5.30pm.

23 December Clore Ballroom performance is a special Friday Tonic starting at 5.30pm.

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We're delighted that Denys has been nominated for a MOBO Award in the Best Jazz Act category, a prize he first won in 1999 after the release of his debut album Be Where You Are. But for Denys to win again this year we need your help. All you have to do is register on the MOBO website and cast your vote. The winner will be announced on October 5 at the MOBO Awards ceremony in Glasgow.

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Denys Baptiste arrived complete with a tenor-sax and a mind full of reminiscences. Which was fine and fitting. On reaching the life-questioning age of 40 he planned the album: Identity by Subtraction. The title is for philosophers to ponder, but the tracks are a musical assessment of what makes Baptiste: Baptiste. Far too likeable to be pretentiousness, he pondered the influence of saxophonists like John Coltrane and Mike Brecker, the impact of all the types of music he’s played to earn a living, the people he’s met along the way, and his life support system – his family.

As he roared through the title-track chord changes, with bassist Gary Crosby rock steady, and drummer Rod Youngs dropping bombs of encouragement, it was clear that the years have certainly advanced his considerable playing. 

Denys’ musical relationship with pianist Andrew McCormack is thing of joy and telepathy. On Harriot’s Charriot - dedicated to saxist Joe Harriot, their swopping of long inter-related choruses was a delight. The pianist brought a dreamlike, impressionistic air to Special Times – the family dedication. It evolved through agitation into life-affirming emotion, seeming to say that happiness comes through effort. It also came with Dance of the Marquiritari, inspired by a family member who belonged to that South American tribe. 

Whatever, with the under-recorded band firing over a dynamic rumba beat, it was very apparent that another recording studio date, can’t come too soon. - Derek Briggs.

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Review by Chris Searle 

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I was asked to write a review for the fabulous Denys Baptiste's new album by the wonderful people at Dune Music, whom I owe and love and miss dearly. It has taken me months, but late last night, Saturday that is, I sat down, erased everything I had and started over. I wrote what I love about the new album. I hope everyone enjoys it too. 

I’ve been trying to write about Denys Baptiste’s latest album for a good two months now. I’ve listened to the album every day, sometimes multiple times, trying to find the words the poet would use to describe the sublimity of discovery and exciting novelty. The words never really came to me, but the notes played on and on. I enjoyed every note. 

“Identity by Subtraction,” an identity formed completely from the removal of what you are not, eventually revealing what you are. It is so often that we describe ourselves as what we are not, rather than by what we are-- what we do not like as opposed to what we do. But peeling away those layers of what is false, what we are not, what we do not wish to be, even, reveals a truer character than deciding what you are, doesn’t it? Denys Baptiste describes the concept for his newest album “Identity by Subtraction” as ‘a process of shedding the superficial layers of expectation … to reveal the music’. 

Then Denys, really, was the embodiment of that sublime poet; every song speaking differently. Jazz is the only kind of music that speaks to you specifically and individually. Tracks such as “Special Times,” a piano-saxophone duet written and dedicated to his family ease the soul and mind in a lullaby like composition. Unexpectedly the album turns to the marvelous calypso-inspired tune ‘Dance of the Marquiritari’ and suddenly you are dancing around the house folding laundry like a Calypso herself. Baptiste’s album highlights the two best aspects of jazz music, expression and collaboration. The album shares the speakers with his unspeakably talented quartet; Rod Youngs on drums, Andrew McCormack on piano and Gary Crosby on double bass. Evolution to Revolution is the riot song of the album, composed beautifully, hopeful and sad as any truly important opposition.

Baptiste’s albums all have different flavors, as if he finds new spices each time he picks up his saxophone. It wouldn’t surprise me. I can hum the melody to any song on ‘Identity by Subtraction’ by now and I still find myself swaying at the end of each tune. The album is one of those that you want with you non-stop for weeks, it’s a great album by an excellent composer and quartet. The album does what good jazz does, makes you move and listen and delight in the everyday.

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Identity By Subtraction could only be the title of a jazz album. Saxophonist Denys Baptiste laughs in recognition of that truism when York Twenty4Seven makes the cheeky suggestion in advance of tomorrow’s tour date in York to promote his new recording.

“It was a phrase I heard in a debate and it had immediate resonance for me because I’d never heard it before and I started thinking about it,” says Denys.

“It’s that thing of identifying yourself by the things that you’re not; that thing of taking on superficial things you feel you ought to be. Like playing a solo on a pop record that you do just to fit in, but then you learn to take away those things that make you just a functioning musician.

“And then, beyond music, there’s also that social thing of being a black man living in the UK.”

Born to St Lucian parents in London on September 14, 1969, Denys says he used to define himself solely as a musician.

“But I don’t do that now. I’m a husband, a father and a school governor in Enfield,” he says. “I also do things for the Arts Council, looking after a number of organisations to make sure they get their funding on time; things that I though I’d never do. So every day is different now.”

Identity By Subtraction is his first album since Let Freedom Ring! in 2003 and initially he was not even planning to make a record when his new songs started emerging.

“It took a year as I wasn’t really writing an album as such; I was just writing songs and getting on with the other parts of my life,” says Denys.

“As I have kids now, I’ve been writing when I have the time and building up stuff, and I’ve ended up with an album of music that has reggae and calypso influences, and family influences too because I’ve got to the point where my children inspire me.”

At 40, Denys reckons he is “not so frenetic now”. “I’m much easier going with my music; a more smouldering person rather than intense, and I’m trying to put that through a lens of funny time signatures, like 15/8, as I love mucking around and thinking, ‘How can I modernise that?’. With these recordings I was just trying to find a way of expressing how these things collided in my head.”

In terms of theme and styles, all the compositions on Identity By Subtraction relate to Denys’s music, the music he has heard and the different types he has played over the years.

“I started off doing pop sessions – I won’t say who for; I’m not going into that early part of my career! – but I’ve also had the chance to play in reggae bands for Manu Dbango, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs,” he says.

“All these have influenced me as that was the kind of music that I grew up listening to and it gets inside you. I wanted to get in touch with that and give it a jazz perspective.”

Age and experience have been key factors in the shaping of the new album.

“I suppose they’re a good thing,” he decides. “When I was younger I wanted to play like Michael Brecker, John Coltrane, but as part of your progression you’re absorbing other styles, and I’ve got to the point with all the music I’ve assimilated that I’m now interpreting it in my way and putting my style on it.

“This is my version of contemporary jazz with the influences that I’ve had.”

Denys will be focusing solely on his new material when he plays the National Centre for Early Music tomorrow in a quartet with pianist Andrew McCormack, double bass player Gary Crosby and drummer Rod Youngs.

“I’ve been playing for 20 years and in some ways I enjoy it more now because I really appreciate the opportunity to be doing it when lots of friends would love to still have that chance.

“Music is a hard career and very few people are able to make a living out of it; that’s why I feel privileged to be doing it as real life takes over with other commitments.”

Denys believes his musicianship is at a new peak.

“This record is the best playing I’ve ever done, and a lot of that has come from not interpreting other work, but doing my own ideas, taking away those barriers,” he says.

“Playing becomes easier. It doesn’t feel such an effort; physically I don’t feel so tired. I still do, but I play in a more relaxed style now. It’s like walking, strolling, rather than getting out of breath.”

In other words, in keeping with the title Identity By Subtraction, less is more.

Denys’s new album, Identity By Subtraction, is out now on the Dune label.

York Press © Copyright 2001-2011 Newsquest Media Group

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by Jon Turney

And so to another sort of re-creation. The final date in St G’s short sequence of John Coltrane themed gigs featured Denys Baptiste’s quartet tackling A Love Supreme. That is a brave thing to do, if only because it is on everyone’s list of top albums in jazz history – though it happens reasonably often: Branford Marsalis is the last touring performance I can recall, David Murray has done some, and so on.

Baptiste gave us a game of two halves. First set was selections from his own new recording. These were uniformly excellent, even though the decision to play acoustically – as folk often do at this venue – produced a few sound problems. It needs musicians who haven’t forgotten how to do that, and it seemed as if the drummer had for a while. He drowned out everyone else in the first number, and occasionally throughout when he mistook volume for intensity, as drummers will.

It’s a great band, though, with Gary Crosby on bass and the phenomenal Andrew McCormack on piano. And the pieces were plenty varied. The opener, suffering from the drumming, was a pretty straight Coltrane-style blow, but there were affecting ballads, a bluesy tune dedicated to the Large Hadron Collider (a man of broad interests, Denys) and a somewhat Rollins-like Dance of the Maquiritari, inspired by the composer’s discovery that he had a Venezuelan great grandmother. That was the set closer, and the most convincing and uninhibited effort of the first half. Guess they were getting warmed up for the demands of the second.

An ascent to the gallery improved the sound – especially the crucial piano – for the second half, which gave us the four movements of Coltrane’s suite without pause (or chanting at the end of part 1). The focus is on the tenor, of course, and Baptiste rose to the occasion splendidly, showing the Coltrane influence strongly but still sounding like himself – a slightly lighter tone, a little more relaxed in the up-tempo passages, a fine, meditative approach to the slow parts. McCormack was blindingly good throughout, Crosby handled the vital bass parts with aplomb and the drumming was fluid and propulsive at the same time. As a tribute to a fine original, it worked beautifully, and was the right choice to finish this mini-series, I reckon.

It was probably the right way to finish the gig, too – as Baptiste said, how could you follow. But he came up with a good-humoured encore,Bye, Bye Blackbird, which evoked a charming solo from the pianist, played almost entirely with the right hand, and sent the audience away with a different mood without undermining what had gone before. You wouldn’t want jazz which is so set on honouring the ancestors all the time, but done as well as this it has plenty going for it.

Mainly jazz in Bristol

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The saxophonist is not exactly prolific – this is his fourth disc in 11 years – but there is always a feeling that his music has benefitted from the long gestation period. It’s thoughtful, rich and has some real personality and depth.

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Denys Baptiste (ts), Andrew McCormack (p), Gary Crosby (b) and  Rod Youngs (d). Rec. 2010

Although he never really went away, Denys Baptiste is back again with his first album since Let Freedom Ring released seven years ago. Less ambitious than his suite that combined gospel, blues, contemporary jazz and Afro-Caribbean music with poetry excerpts, here Baptiste concentrates on refining his approach to the quartet through a series of compositions that tackle identity through attempting to explore the essence of the inner man.

The pieces are linked by their relationship to aspects of his persona, thus ‘The Long Night’, the album’s most dramatic and forceful piece, explores slavery; ‘Dance of Makritari’ – a musical descendent of ‘St. Thomas’ – reflects Baptiste’s recent discovery that his great-grandmother was a member of the Makritari tribe; while ‘Special Times’ is a dedication to his family (his wife and two children) which for the last few years have been his priority at the expense of his career in jazz. It is a robust and absorbing statement from one of the UK’s finest young saxophonists, the track ‘Shorter by Miles’ showing he is back for business and in fine form.   - Stuart Nicholson 

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