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23 May
I have tried to write this up before my recollections fade further... they have faded far enough...
Roller Trio comprises tenor sax, electric bass and drums, and they play with an assurance that cannot just come from knowing their material, but also from the unshowy musicality that seems to be the group’s ethos. Not that one will not be impressed by James Mainwaring’s riffs or the funky depths that Luke Wynter conjures up, but it is all of a piece from three guys (the third being drummer Luke Reddin-Williams), whose main aim clearly is to make music, rather than deliver solos.
In a way, we were spoilt to have a fifty-minute set from the trio and then one from quintet Polar Bear, but it did mean that certain things had to be left unexplored, and that neither band, knowing that they had to wind down early, could get into a seventy-five-minute groove.
Not that that came over in the trio's playing, but it probably limited their ambitions for what they could share - which is where I come back to saying that one had to regard this as a good chance to hear both bands. And I know that Roller Trio took the opportunity to do just that with Polar Bear, and then, because they were staying in the same hotel, had a chance to talk later.
It was nice, @rollertrio, to be where the likes of @polarbear_uk and you were spending the night !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 7, 2013
It was the right way around to have Roller Trio first, as their sassy and less-extended numbers made an interesting contrast with the electro-acoustic sound-world that followed, of drawn-out and flexible sections, and with the thrill of two tenor saxes (Mark Lockheart, Pete Wareham) playing off each other.
Roller Trio seemed @bbcjazzon3, but Polar Bear more like @bbcradio3's Late Junction - perhaps @imaxreinhardt ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 6, 2013
Seb Rochford, drummer and the band’s almost self-deletingly frontman, introduced the three pieces that they had time for with a highly tentative wish that the audience ‘might feel something’. In my case, I had the sense of free navigation around structures that allowed saxes, electronics (Leafcutter John), bass (Tom Herbert) and drums to fit into their place and move around in them.
I am left hoping to see the bands again, maybe hear them on the radio before then, and to look into some of their recordings...
Favourite five events (unranked) from #cheltjazzfest : @cmartinjazz, Troyk-estra, Barbacana, Roller Trio / Polar Bear, Ravi Coltrane Quintet
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 6, 2013
Both have web-sites, which are linked to Roller Trio (@RollerTrio) and Polar Bear (@polarbear_uk) for you
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