Photograph: David Redfern/Redferns
The British pianist Howard Riley, who has died aged 81, was a leading figure among the first generation of European jazz musicians to prioritise creating an idiom of their own out of the language developed by the American musicians they had admired and studied.
Riley brought to the task a knowledge of the advanced techniques pioneered by contemporary classical composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Krzysztof Penderecki and Luciano Berio. But there was no straining for effect as he applied that knowledge to music with improvisation at its core, and his work was always most profoundly marked by his love and understanding of Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and other great jazz musicians.
