Described to have won the Worshipful Company’s Young Jazz musician award with “great mix of communicativeness, simplicity and sass,” I am fortunate to be a recognised musician and an active participant in the UK Jazz community. I am privileged to have recorded with established UK based Jazz musicians such as Jean Toussaint and Clark Tracey, as well as “up and coming” musicians such as Camilla George, Ashley Henry, Nubya Garcia and Binker Golding. My career has me performing around the world (America, Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe) and I have appeared on record labels such as Jazz Re:freshed, Brownswood, Gearbox and Sony.
I attended Birmingham Conservatoire’s Jazz Course between 2008-2012. This was then followed by a Master’s degree course in Trinity Laban, supported by the Savile Club and Help Musicians scholarships. The time spent at these Conservatoires were transformative, changing from a Jazz novice to a professional musician. Jon Turney documents an external Birmingham Conservatoire event with Chris Potter: "Outstanding for me, though, was Dan Casimir on bass. He did everything a bass player should, cruising with the orchestra, responding creatively to the soloists, duetting impressively with Potter on one number.”
At the start of my professional career, I had the honour of joining the Clark Tracey Quintet. Over the 5 years that I was in the Quintet, I recorded two albums, both well received by the UK jazz media. As a new graduate, the Clark Tracey Quintet provided an incredible opportunity to be embedded within the UK Jazz scene. This is highlighted by The Jazz Mann: Casimir was the last of the young musicians to take the limelight with solo that included some distinctive pizzicato work up around the bridge and a welcome sense of humour as he duetted with his leader.
Around the same time as joining the Quintet, I also began my affiliation with Tomorrow’s Warriors. Tomorrow’s Warriors has played a key part in my career. Many of the Musicians that I currently work with, Camilla George, Femi Koleoso, Nubya Garcia, Moses Boyd and Shirley Tetteh, I have met directly through Tomorrow’s Warriors.
Winning the Worshipful company award in 2016 marked a turning point in my career. The award enabled me to extend the stature that I had developed within the UK jazz community to the wider public. This was achieved by releasing my debut E.P, ‘Escapee’ on the Jazz Re:freshed Imprint. ‘Escapee’ was given a 5 star review from the Evening Standard and featured on BBC Introducing.
So far, 2018 has been an eventful year. In addition to performing in over a dozen countries and appearing on five records, I was invited to participate in the Riga Jazz Bass competition. I am also nominated in the British Jazz “Rising Star” category. For the rest of the year, I will be finishing the preparations for the new album that I have written with Tess Hirst as well as composing music for a new project that features a string quartet.
