Django Bates

Django Bates is an English pianist, keyboard player and composer, born Leon Bates in Beckenham in 1960. He came up in the London jazz scene of the 1980s as one of the main writers for the big band Loose Tubes and also played in Bill Bruford's Earthworks. He has since led his own large ensembles and trios, taught jazz in Copenhagen, London and Bern, and recorded for ECM with First House, his trio Belovèd and Anouar Brahem. Bates founded the band Human Chain and, in 1991, the 19-piece orchestra Delightful Precipice.