Tim Richards

About Tim Richards

Tim Richards’ first encounter with a piano was at the age of eight in a dentist’s waiting room, shortly after which he began having piano lessons. At the age of fourteen he began playing blues and boogie-woogie, a style in which he is mainly self taught.

In the late 1970s, he formed the well-known modern jazz group Spirit Level and has been active on the blues and jazz scene ever since, playing at clubs and festivals all over Europe, and broadcasting innumerable times on the BBC and on foreign radio stations. In 1986–87, Spirit Level toured Britain and Europe with US trumpeter Jack Walrath, recording the album Killer Bunnies (1986 – Spotlite SPJ LP25), which received a four-star write-up in the US magazine Downbeat. In 1995, Spirit Level were nominated ‘Best Small Group’ in the British Jazz Awards.

In 1999, Tim formed Great Spirit, a new nine-piece band celebrating the 20th anniversary of Spirit Level, featuring some of Britain’s best jazz musicians. The band has toured the UK several times and released two CDs. A more recent project is the six-piece ‘Hextet’, whose 2015 album Telegraph Hill was described in The Observer as “A joy from beginning to end”.

On the blues side, Tim took over from Bob Hall in award-winning guitarist Otis Grand’s original 1988 ten-piece blues band, the Dance Kings. He appeared on the band’s first album, Always Hot, (Indigo IGOXCD505) with US guitarist Joe Louis Walker, subsequently appearing at many European blues festivals, including Peer (Belgium), where they played opposite John Lee Hooker. In 1998, Tim toured Europe with US guitarist Larry Garner. More recently he has performed with ex-Muddy Waters harmonica player Mojo Buford, Chicago blues singer Dietra Farr and award-winning British vocalist Dana Gillespie.

Tim currently teaches jazz and blues piano at The City Lit and Morley College in London and has also taught at the University of Surrey and Goldsmith College, London. From 1999 to 2019, he was a jazz examiner for ABRSM, also contributing pieces to their jazz piano syllabus, and was a member of the jury for the Nottingham International Jazz Piano Competition.

To find out more about Tim Richards, including news about upcoming gigs please see his own website: www.timrichards.ndo.co.uk

Follow Tim on Instagram: @timrichards123