Howard Riley

Born on 16 February 1943 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, John Howard Riley took up the piano at six yet waited another decade before turning to jazz. Between 1961 and 1966 he read at Bangor, North Wales, under Bernard Rands, emerging with BA and MA degrees; he then moved to Indiana for lessons with David Baker, completing an M.Mus. in 1967. From 1967 to 1970 he pursued a PhD at York University with Wilfred Mellers, who supplied a work titled Yeibichai scored for symphony orchestra, scat singer and jazz trio; the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Frank Holder and Riley’s own trio gave its première at the 1969 Proms. While still at Bangor he had already fronted a trio, and after returning from the United States he assembled another featuring Barry Guy—Ron Rubin sometimes joining—and Jon Hiseman, later replaced by Tony Oxley and subsequently Alan Jackson. During the same period he began contributing scores to the Spontaneous Music Ensemble and the Don Rendell–Ian Carr Quintet.

Chamber and orchestral compositions by Riley also started reaching concert platforms, and he became a founding member of the Musicians’ Co-Operative. Further writing followed for Barry Guy’s London Jazz Composers’ Orchestra and the New Jazz Orchestra. As a pianist he appeared alongside Keith Tippett, John McLaughlin—who had occasionally guested with the late-sixties trio—Jaki Byard, Elton Dean, the LJCO (where he was featured soloist on Double Trouble), Barbara Thompson, Oxley and numerous others. Teaching posts took him to the Guildhall School of Music, Goldsmiths’ College in London and the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo. In the late 1980s he launched his own cassette imprint, Falcon Tapes, to issue both archival and recent material. In 1990 he and Dean jointly directed an improvising quartet through a programme of jazz standards, documenting the results on All The Tradition.