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A dynamic, forceful, and risk-taking pianist,
Matthew Bourne defies pigeonholing but is akin to artists on the nu-jazz scene. Categories such as this deny his broad appeal, however. He draws not only upon the jazz piano tradition of
Count Basie,
Bill Evans,
Herbie Hancock, and
Thelonious Monk, themselves a varied assortment, but also upon the worlds of pop and classical music, in the latter case immersing himself in the avant-garde. Additionally, he has ventured into electronic music, collaborating with downtempo artists
Broadway Project and
Bonobo, as well as paying tribute to
Kraftwerk with French experimental guitarist
Franck Vigroux (on 2015's
Radioland: Radio-Activity Revisited). His solo acoustic works include 2021's Désinances and the 2022 prepared piano release
Irrealis.
Born in 1977 in Avebury, Wiltshire, England,
Bourne began playing trombone at the age of nine, took up the cello at 13, and two years after that taught himself to play piano, assimilating the music of
Claude Debussy,
Maurice Ravel, and
George Gershwin. Rapid progress on cello and piano led to the abandonment of the trombone. All of this occurred while he was attending primary and secondary schools, and by 1995 he was an accomplished musician. In that same year,
Bourne began taking an interest in jazz. Also in 1995, he raised £1,500 for the Hawksley Romania Trust by improvising at the piano for 24 hours. In 1996, he bought a Fender Rhodes electric piano and began studying at the Leeds College of Music. During the next few years at Leeds,
Bourne began to develop a passion for British jazz of the '70s and in particular musicians such as
John Surman,
Mike Osborne,
Evan Parker, and
Mike Westbrook, all of whom continued to be constant sources of inspiration. Concurrently,
Bourne began to conform less and less to the mainstream approach to jazz and explored instead the world of contemporary composition and the avant-garde. During this same period, he was also plagued by severe attacks of tendonitis, something that had first appeared in the aftermath of his 24-hour charity marathon. He became involved in the college's contemporary music ensemble, playing
John Cage,
Morton Feldman, and
Louis Andriessen, and was soloist in
Michael Daugherty's piano concerto Tombeau de Liberace and
Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra.
After graduating in 2001 with a first-class degree,
Bourne continued to study at Leeds University for a Ph.D. in Performance, which he attained in 2004. In 2001 he won the Young Jazz Musician category of the Perrier Awards. Other winners included singer
Niki King and
the Chris Hutchings Quartet, and they all shared a resulting album. The following year, he won the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation.
Bourne formed an ensemble called the Electric Dr M with guitarist
Chris Sharkey, bassist
Riaan Vosloo, and drummers Dave Black and Sam Hobbs; their self-titled album appeared on Sound Recordings in 2003. In 2005,
Bourne won the International Jazz Award from the International Jazz Festivals Organisation. His debut solo album, The Molde Concert (recorded live in Molde, Norway in 2005), was released by Foghorn Records in 2008, and was met with acclaim. That same year he released albums with
Trio Grande (Un Matin Plein de Promesses) and
Dave Stapleton (
Dismantling the Waterfall: The Mill Sessions, Vol. 1). He also formed Bourne Davis Kane with bassist Dave Kane and drummer
Steve Davis, and the trio released its debut album,
Lost Something, on Edition Records that year. In 2009 he collaborated with
Vigroux, who released the duo's Call Me Madame (Good News from Wonderland) on his D'Autres Cordes label. Moment to Moment, a Bourne Davis Kane album with saxophonist
Paul Dunmall, appeared on Slam Productions that year, followed by the trio's The Money Notes on Foghorn Records in 2010.
Bourne released collaborations with
Trio Grande (Hold the Line!) and Tony Bevan,
Tony Buck, and
Barre Phillips (Everybody Else But Me) in 2011. The following year, Leaf released
Bourne's debut studio solo full-length, Montauk Variations. The release was praised for its serenity and grace, and led to collaborations with
Amon Tobin and
Nancy Elizabeth, both of whom were fans of the album. Chanson d'Amour,
Bourne's collaboration with
Laurent Dehors, also appeared that year.
Bourne collaborated with
Vosloo and drummer
Tim Giles under the name Impermanence Trio, and their split LP with Tricko Tareco appeared on Impossible Ark Records in early 2013. //Bourne/Berridge/Bourne//, a collaboration between
Bourne and
Broadway Project, was digitally released by ODS Recordings in 2014. Bourne Davis Kane's Broken Light was issued in late 2015, as was Mandalas in the Sky, the trio's second album with
Dunmall.
Also in 2015,
Bourne collaborated with
Vigroux and installation artist Antoine Schmitt on a series of audio-visual events titled
Radioland, which paid tribute to
Kraftwerk's 1975 classic
Radio-Aktivität in celebration of its 40th anniversary. Leaf issued
Radioland: Radio-Activity Revisited in early 2016. Soon after, the label also released
Bourne's solo album
Moogmemory, recorded entirely on the Lintronics Advanced Memorymoog synthesizer. Later that year
Bourne released an accompanying EP whose tracks were conceived during the recording of
Moogmemory, which even included a cover of
Phil Collins' "Sussudio." Just a year later he was set to release another full-length record.
Isotach was recorded at his home in Yorkshire, and saw him make a return to acoustic instrumentation. Leaf released
Bourne's self-titled collaboration with experimental duo
Nightports in 2018.
Bourne collaborated with French clarinetist
Laurent Dehors, producing A Place That Has No Memory of You, released by émouvance in 2020. Désinances, a solo piano record drawn from two sessions, was issued by
Jimi Tenor's Puu imprint in 2021. A live performance with
Keith Tippett, Aeolian, was released by Discus. The Embalmer, with drummer Emil Karlsen, came out on Relative Pitch Records in 2022.
Bourne returned to Leaf with
Irrealis, a short album of improvised pieces for prepared piano. ~ TiVo Staff & Paul Simpson