Django Bates

Django Bates (born Leon Bates, 2 October 1960) is a British jazz musician, composer, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and educator. He plays piano, keyboards and tenor horn. Bates has been described as "one of the most talented musicians Britain has produced... his work covers the whole spectrum of jazz, from early jazz to bebop and free jazz, through to jazz-rock fusion."

As well as his jazz work, he is also a composer of classical music (writing large- and small-scale works to commission), a composer for the theatre, and has taught as a professor at various European music schools. Leading his own groups, he has directed, among others, Human Chain, Delightful Precipice, Quiet Nights, Powder Room Collapse Orchestra and Belovèd, and he has also been a major figure in Loose Tubes and in Bill Bruford's Earthworks.