Keith Tippett died on 14 June; the cause of death is currently unknown. Born Keith Graham Tippetts in Southmead, Bristol, in 1947, Tippett studied organ and piano. He formed his first jazz group whilst at school alongside friends Terry Pratt and Bob Chard, and became a regular at Bristol venue the Dugout Club.

Tippett moved to London at the age of 20. It was there he would meet trombonist Nick Evans, cornettist Mark Charig and saxophonist Elton Dean and form the The Keith Tippett Group. Having first seen Tippett perform at the 100 Club, the then Julie Driscoll would have Tippett's group play on her debut album in 1969. “We were introduced and were then literally locked in all night at Polydor’s studios until the cleaners came in the morning,” recalled Tippett in The Wire 426. “Julie would play her songs and say, ‘I would like some brass here’. We worked all the way through the night and we fell in love.”

They married in 1970. It was at that time that Tippett would drop the "s" in his name in response to a number of misspellings by promoters who would bill his group as Keith Tippett’s Sextet. Julie and Keith would go on to collaborate throughout all of their respective individual music careers.

In 1970 Tippett played piano on the King Crimson albums In The Wake Of Poseidon and Lizard. The following year he formed Centipede – Keith and Julie's first collaborative project, an ensemble of more than 50 musicians including members of Soft Machine, King Crimson and Spontaneous Music Ensemble – releasing Septober Energy in 1971 on Neon Records.

Interviewed in The Wire 142, Robert Wyatt described Tippett as “a West Country bloke with a great big heart and completely unlike the Old Boy Network jazz mafia that was the London scene at the time. He listened to everybody, was openminded, never put anybody down and one of his things was to get all these different musicians from different genres together.”

In 1972, Tippett released Blueprint, his and Julie's first improvised album as a duo. Tippett would go on to collaborate with Louis Moholo-Moholo, Paul Dunmall, Peter Brötzmann, John Tilbury, Pat Thomas and many others. For 25 years he co-directed, with Lewis Riley, a course at the Dartington Summer School. He was also an Honorary Fellow at Royal Welsh College Of Music and Drama.

In 2018 a fund was set up for Tippett following a heart attack and complications with pneumonia. He would later regain strength and return to performing live.

Tippett was the subject of two large articles in the pages of The Wire, which are available to read for free until 15 July. In 2001 he was interviewed by Julian Cowley (read on Exact Editions); and in 2019 he and Julie were interviewed together by Mike Barnes (read on Exact Editions).