Polar Bear

With no new recordings for over four years, the progressive jazzers still pulled in a full house to experience an evening of entirely new music. The varied set began well with some clockwork-like funk using multi-changing time signatures and a highlight for me was an Indian street scene piece that was full of chatty tenors and rattling drums. The gentler numbers worked well with sultry saxes, predatory walking bass and Seb Roachford’s fingers lightly tickling the cymbals while uptempo offerings proved crowd pleasers. My only gripe was that the samples got in the way of, rather than enhancing, the music.

Komedia, 26 March 2014

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