Howard Riley

With his sense of adventure and his many collaborations, pianist Howard Riley played a major role in the development of avant-garde jazz in the UK. Born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, on February 16, 1943, he learned to play the piano with his father from the age of six, and became interested in jazz in his teens. He studied at the University of Wales in Cardiff (1961-1966), before moving to the United States, where he studied with David Baker at Indiana University. He played with saxophonist Evan Parker and formed the Howard Riley Trio (1967-1976), before finishing his studies at York University in Toronto (Canada). His first trio albums with Barry Guy and the various drummers Jon Hiseman and Alan Jackson, Discussions (1968), Angle (1969) and The Day Will Come (1970), defined his free, experimental approach, before a series of collaborations. A member of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra, and a privileged partner of drummer Tony Oxley and Keith Tippett, he also made solo albums and improvisation exercises with Jaki Byard, Lol Coxhill, Elton Dean and Larry Stabbins, maintaining his ever-inventive style over the decades, on some fifty albums as leader. In the 1970s, he began teaching at the Guildhall School of Music, then at Goldsmiths University in London. Suffering from Parkinson's disease, Howard Riley spent three years in a nursing home, before passing away on February 8, 2025, at the age of 81.

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