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POLAR BEAR | PRESS Breaking out of the jazz ghetto Peter Culshaw meets the drummer from Mercury prize-nominated band Polar Bear
Every now and then there is an attempted break-out from the British jazz ghetto into the mainstream pop circuit. In the '70s there were bands such as Ian Carr's Nucleus and Soft Machine, in the '80s Bristol's Rip Rig and Panic. But now London group Polar Bear are pushing jazz in this direction, and have already been described as "the most compelling band to emerge from the Amish-like world of British jazz in years". "It's a good time right now - there are lots of musicians and venues coming up in London, like the Spitz in Spitafields and the Vortex in Dalston," says drummer Seb Rochford, 31, whose technical brilliance and uncompromising musical vision is winning the band an increasingly international following. Roachford is part of a wider group of musicians, the F-IRE Collective. In fact earlier this year he was in about 10 bands all at once "I did have a night off in April," as he puts it. Polar Bear have a wide palette - there are clear traces of Björk, hip-hop, Kurt Weill and Ornette Coleman in their music, and on stage an "electronica artist" called Leafcutter John adds depth and modernity to the soundscape with the aid of a lap-top. Roachford, whose massive hair looks as if someone has plugged him into the mains, has a musical background that explains much of Polar Bear's eclectic sound. "I first started playing drums along to Prince and Grace Jones records," he says. "Then I got into Iron Maiden, Metallica and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin." Only later did he discover jazz, and subsequently shared a teacher with orchestral percussionist Evelyn Glennie. "A lot of heavy metal drumming is highly technical and fast," he says. "But what I love is music that doesn't compromise, whether that's Tom Jobim or Pig Destroyer." Roachford has little time for jazz purists: "From the start jazz was a mixture of musics - New Orleans was a giant melting pot. I tend to like bands who are vague as to what their genre is." Plenty of critics have felt this new wave of jazz so distinctive that it ought to have its own label, (candidates include post-jazz and "skronk"), but Roachford is wary of pigeonholing. "I admire artists like Radiohead or Miles Davies, who have made very different records. In the end it's just their music, which they have stamped their identity on, and which people tell each other about. There's a precious freedom to manoeuvre that we'd hate to lose." And the Mercury? Will it go skronk? "It's flattering
to be nominated," he says, "but we won't win it."
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