Turning to jazz in 1953, Downes studied harmony with Dizzy Gillespie and piano with Mary Lou Williams. He worked until 1956 in Europe with such leading US musicians as Sidney Bechet, Buck Clayton, and Bill Coleman. He later studied piano with Oscar Peterson and composition with Neil Chotem in Montréal, and attended Peterson's Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto. His forceful, vigorously physical style allies to the Peterson influence a strong grounding in bebop and a deep feeling for the blues.
