(The Leaf Label BAY 98CD) Every Polar Bear album is a surprise, a fresh angle, a new and original move by drummer Seb Rochford and his loyal partners, Mark Lockheart, Pete Wareham, Tom Herbert and Leafcutter John, and this one… Read More ›
polar bear
To Amazon or not to Amazon
Many thanks to all who took part in the Where Do You Buy Your Music? poll which has been running on thejazzbreakfast for a week and a bit. The results show that exactly half of you shop with a heavy… Read More ›
2014 Festive 50 – Numbers 30-21
The next 10 of the 50 CDs I have most enjoyed listening to in 2014, in ascending order. Numbers 20-11 tomorrow: 30 Michael Wollny Trio Weltentraum (ACT 9563-2) Full review here 29 Mark Turner Quartet Lathe Of Heaven (ECM 378 0663) Full review… Read More ›
Mercury Prize tonight – Penguins and Polar Bears arise
Best wishes and some thumb-holding to Polar Bear and Go Go Penguin ahead of this evening’s Mercury Prize announcement. The Album Of The Year award show will be covered on More4 from 9.30pm. In the meantime here is a little vid… Read More ›
Mercury Prize – jazz cynics 1, optimists 0
This afternoon I was in the Birmingham Bull Ring branch of HMV when I spotted this Mercury Prize display. Now I am aware that I often appear rather cynical about this prize and what I perceive as its jazz tokenism… Read More ›
Double the chances for a Mercury triumph?
So, the Mercury Prize nominations for 2014 have been announced and there are two albums in there which could have the word “jazz” attached to them: Polar Bear for In Each And Every One and GoGo Penguin for v2.0. Does this mean… Read More ›
A Love Supreme… A Love Supreme….
It came out of nowhere last year and this year it’s even bigger. The Love Supreme Jazz Festival opens in the Sussex countryside near one of the country’s hippest cities, Brighton, and runs until Sunday. As with many jazz festivals these… Read More ›
It’s a good day to visit a record shop
It may be nearly half gone but, hey, record shoppers – and for that matter, record shop owners – don’t necessarily rise at dawn. Anyway, it’s still International Record Store Day, the time to remember that there are much more… Read More ›
Gateshead International Jazz Festival: Day Three
Shiver/Polar Bear, Hall Two, The Sage, Gateshead UK Pablo Held Trio/ Bill Frisell’s Beautiful Dreamers, Hall Two, The Sage, Gateshead UK 06-04-2014 Who better to be commissioned to write some music for the 10th Gateshead International Jazz Festival than the… Read More ›
Gateshead International Jazz Festival here I come
Feeling rather jolly at the thought of driving North-East shortly for a weekend at the Gateshead International Jazz Festival. The three-day shindig, the organisers’ 10th, has a top-notch line-up and I hope to catch Django Bates’ Beloved Trio, the Norbotten Big Band,… Read More ›
Women in jazz – it’s not just about the band
Jazzlines, the Birmingham promoters, have recently launched a new initiative to try to right the gender imbalance among jazz musicians. Women in Jazz is part of Jazzlines’ educational work and it’s a three-year project aimed at helping young women aged between 16… Read More ›
Polar Bear & Gonimoblast
Hare And Hounds, Kings Heath, Birmingham UK 27-03-2014 The room was rammed and the expectations high for this first Birmingham gig in a number of years from Sebastian Rochford’s quintet. And it’s on the back of the first new album… Read More ›
Polar Bear leads the week’s choice Midland gigs
It’s hard to believe, but one of British jazz’s most innovative and distinctive bands is ten years old. Polar Bear, led by drummer Sebastian Rochford, has toured extensively over this decade and released its fifth recording at the beginning of… Read More ›
Polar Bear – In Each And Every One
(Leaf BAY90CD, limited edition double LP BAY90V, digital download BAY90E) This is so distinctively a Polar Bear album, and yet nothing like anything we have heard before from the quintet of drummer Sebastian Rochford, bassist Tom Herbert, tenor saxophonists Pete… Read More ›
Parker meets Prefab Sprout at Gateshead International Jazz Festival
It’s a rare meeting – Charlie Parker and Paddy McAloon – and one which could only happen in the fertile minds of jazz musicians and festival programmers, but a meeting it will be on the opening night of the 2014… Read More ›
Plan your 2014 now – new on sale at Jazzlines
There is loads of good jazz on the cards for the early months of 2014 with new Jazzlines concerts now on sale. Here’s the line-up: Saturday 18 January: Empirical with Benyounes Quartet – CBSO Centre Thursday 30 January: Troyka –… Read More ›
We should all be winners at Cheltenham this week
The runners might be notes and sounds, the riders might be saxophonists, pianists and drummers, but the excitement is just as palpable as when the venue is Cheltenham racecourse. And the added bonus with the Cheltenham Jazz Festival is that… Read More ›
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