Theo Travis

Theo Travis

Theo Travis (born 7 July 1964 in Birmingham, England) is a British saxophonist, flautist and clarinetist. Travis received his degree in music from the University of Manchester specialising in the works of Shostakovich. He has made eleven solo albums, mostly as a band leader working in the field of jazz, composing and arranging most of the material. However, 2003's Slow Life, on which he is the sole performer, is an ambient album employing loops which prefigures his later work with Travis & Fripp. He has made about the same number of albums again credited to himself and one (or occasionally more) other collaborator(s), including John Foxx and, as half of Travis & Fripp, Robert Fripp. On his albums as band leader, Travis has played with numerous other jazz musicians. These have included, on his 2007 album Double Talk, guitarist Mike Outram and organist Pete Whittaker. There was no bassist as such on that album: Whittaker's distinctive keyboard style includes playing bass parts with his left hand. Robert Fripp also guested on two tracks on this album, one of which he co-wrote with Travis. Owing to other collaborative commitments, Travis did not record another jazz album for eight years. When he did so in 2015, he named his new band Theo Travis' Double Talk after the 2007 album. This new band again included both Outram and Whittaker, with the addition of Nic France on drums.In 1993, Travis worked alongside bassist Dave Sturt on the Jade Warrior album Distant Echoes - as they would again on that band's 2008 album NOW. It was to prove a fortuitous collaboration. The pair worked together in the four-piece jazz fusion band The Other Side, releasing the album Dangerous Days in 1994, and, since 1999, with varying guest musicians in their band Cipher which collaborated with Bill Nelson in both the latter's improvisational three-piece live band Orchestra Futura and his more conventional, seven-piece rock band Bill Nelson and the Gentlemen Rocketeers. Sturt would also serve as Mix engineer on Travis & Fripp's 2014 album Discretion. In 2006, Travis joined Soft Machine Legacy, a project based on personnel and works of the band Soft Machine, replacing the late reedsman Elton Dean. Since 2008 he has worked with guitarist Robert Fripp in the duo Travis and Fripp, releasing four CDs to date, as well as three live concerts as downloads through DGMLive (two of them also on vinyl through Tonefloat). Travis has also worked extensively with Steven Wilson, performing on fifteen of his records and with Wilson mixing six of Travis' releases. Travis appears extensively as featured soloist on Wilson's Grammy nominated album Grace for Drowning and is part of his touring live band. In 2014, using kickstarter funding, he self-published the book Twice Around The World: Steven Wilson Tour Blogs 2012-2013 which included entries previously published on Travis' Facebook page, here re-edited, and was lavishly illustrated with photographs from that tour. Travis has also worked with Harold Budd, Bass Communion, Burnt Friedman, Gong, No-Man, Porcupine Tree, The Tangent, Dave and Richard Sinclair, David Sylvian and David Gilmour. He is of significance to the genres of jazz, ambient music and progressive rock.

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