About

About Kingsley

Durant’s Early Life and Influences

You could say that music is in Kingsley Durant’s blood. He is the oldest of five brothers, and four of them play music. In fact, his entire family on his mother’s side is musical. Durant hails from a clan that boasts violinists, pianists, classical singers, organists, horn players, and guitarists in its ranks.

Durant demonstrated both an aptitude and an appetite for music when he was young. He began playing when he was eight years old, learning piano, trumpet, and French horn as well as guitar. He performed in concert bands and choirs and studied music theory and composition in high school and college. The classical musicians in his family were important influences in his musical development, as was his uncle, Peter Gammons. He shared with Durant his comprehensive mid-1960s record collection, which included artists like Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and the Yardbirds. This led to a fascination with the sound and feel of guitars and rock and roll music that has never abated.

Durant was in his late teens when he started listening to jazz through the music of artists like Miles Davis, Weather Report, and Gary Burton. Jazz was the genre that inspired Durant to turn his love of music into something serious — but he had his reservations. He grew up with a well-respected church-organist grandfather who had little in the way of retirement savings at the end of his career, so Durant had no delusions about the realities of the lifestyle of many professional musicians.

After college at Boston University, Durant became a teacher. He earned a PhD in mathematics education and taught the subject at various schools, teaching with every age group from middle school and high school students to college students and adults. By the mid-1990s, Durant had transitioned his propensity for instruction into a career writing and editing large-scale mathematics assessments. During that time, he never gave up music nor lost his passion for playing. He often found himself playing in the pit band for musicals, with groups of students he taught, with colleagues, or sitting in with groups in the area where he lived.

The Inspiration for Durant’s Rock-Infused Jazz Sound

Durant describes himself as “a rock and roll player messing with jazz,” and he takes his main inspiration from legends like Jeff Beck and Steve Howe. In truth, Durant has been writing since he learned a few chords from his uncle Peter when he was a child, and he’s been writing electric guitar music since that initial introduction to jazz in his early twenties. The work of guitarists Johnny A and Bobby Keyes struck a chord with Durant in the early 2000s. These two artists created instrumental songs in which the electric guitar was the lead voice but eschewed the over-the-top virtuosity that characterized much of the guitar-centric, instrumental music that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Listening to these artists inspired Durant to start writing more seriously for a small-group setting.

From Teacher and Test Writer to Band Leader and Music Writer

Durant got a break from his work in education through his brother and fellow guitarist, Jon. TV and film composer Michael Whalen, with whom Jon had worked on various projects, was putting together a promotional DVD for St. Andrew’s School, which Whalen and Durant had both attended. Whalen invited Durant to submit a piece of music. One of them ended up as the opening piece for the DVD.

That led to the record, Away From the Water, which was released in 2003 through Jon’s label, Alchemy Records. Two solo acoustic guitar pieces from the record, “The Boy Who Loved Trucks” and “Princess,” still get regular worldwide airplay on New Age radio. Following the release of the record, Durant did a live performance for New Hampshire Public Radio, opened for Alex DeGrassi, and performed at the opening of the Arts and Performance Center at St. Andrew’s School. By this time, he had also started playing jazz at the Press Room in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

In 2008, he started a trio with drummer José Duqué and bassist John Hunter, which featured the original music Durant had been composing since the release of his first record. It was the first time since high school that he led a group playing his original music, and over the course of a few years, they developed a sound that blended jazz and rock with more impressionistic ideas into a unique stew. The group got busy, and Durant began stepping away from his career as a mathematics assessment specialist so he could pursue music more seriously.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“Kingsley Durant delights with his supple and slinky phrasing, warm yet articulate tone, and cagey sense of melody. It’s joyous, feel-good music to be sure, but Durant tosses in a few surprises…Exuberantly unpredictable.” – Michael Molenda, founder, Guardians of Guitar