Greg Foat

British pianist-keyboardist-composer Greg Foat has long been pigeonholed as a jazz musician, yet he fits the tradition sideways, at best. Though he studied with UK jazz luminaries like pianist Gordon Beck, his Greg Foat Group came to renown by tapping into Britain’s late-’60s jazz-rock heyday of bands like Soft Machine and Nucleus, his work’s preoccupation with texture, melody, and narrative had long placed him outside that music’s jam-oriented solo expressions. 

Since 2017, when Foat committed himself to a way of working more centred on place, partnership and circumstance than predetermined style, the peculiarities in his music have become more pronounced, and his creative output has mushroomed. (Piotr Orlov)