Polar Bear

London based Polar Bear are an avant jazz quintet. With drummer Seb Rochford fronting them from behind they are part of a long standing jazz tradition of drummer led groups, stretching back to Art Blakey and Chick Webb.

Seb has performed and recorded with a huge range of artists including Joanna McGregor, Adele, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, and even features on the first single by Pete Doherty’s Baby Shambles.

Polar Bear’s first album, ‘Held On The Tips of Fingers’, was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Prize, listed on the Jazzwise ‘100 Jazz Albums That Changed The World’ and The Guardian’s ‘1000 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’.

Sometimes described as post-jazz, their sound appeals to jazz traditionalists as well as those who don’t normally do jazz, appealing to hip-hop and indie rock fans.

The band has attracted many celebrity admirers including Vic Reeves, Portishead and The Mighty Boosh. The Boosh’s Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding personally selected Polar Bear to star at The Mighty Boosh festival in 2008.

In the sound of Polar Bear you can hear echoes from the whole of the jazz tradition. From the fusion of the Bitches Brew era of Miles to the Free Jazz of Coltrane and Albert Ayler, along with elements of the English Pastoral sensibility of Neil Ardley, Kenny Wheeler, John Surman and Keith Tippett. There are also echoes from beyond jazz, suggesting the band have been listening to avant garde classical composers like Stockhausen and Steve Reich, the punk funk of Pil and Rip Rig and Panic, laptop glitch of Fennesz and the quirky Anglo-French prog of Gong.

Polar Bear, and their latest self titled album, have transcend these genres by producing their own unique form of jazz that reflects the heady multi cultural brew that is British 21st century music and lifestyle.