Music / contemporary jazz
Review: Sebastian Rochford’s Finding Ways, St George’s – both a statement of and a means to achieve hope
There’s been an austere severity about ubiquitous drummer Sebastian Rochford for some time now. It was enhanced when he replaced his awesome cloud of tangled hair with the immaculate shining dome he now sports, but generally undercut by his genial diffidence when speaking. The title of this project, he explained during the first set at St George’s, represents his way of trying to face forward after a series of difficult life experiences. Finding Ways is meant to be both a statement of and a means to achieve hope. Remarkably, given the generally cynical demeanour this reviewer tends to adopt, I can confirm that it does both.
Finding Ways – David Preston, Seb Rochford, Anders Christensen
Seb may have been more frequently seen in the furrowed brow zone of contemporary jazz, as have guitarists Tara Cunningham and David Preston and bass guitarist Anders Christensen, but somehow in assembling this core quartet the drummer has provided an alchemy that generates purely affirmative music to gladden the soul. Small wonder that he spent so much of the evening grinning broadly at the other musicians.
Finding Ways – Seb Rochford, Anders Christensen, Tara Cunningham
They opened with the unnerving sweetness of new tune What If There Wasn’t Another Day?, a surf-ish guitar line over steady drum chops and careful rhythm guitar, the bass player gently swooping octaves. It was almost Khruangbin in its beguiling easiness. The next number was more chaotic at the start – had we been lulled into a false sense of something? But no, even at its wildest free moments it would seem that the essential empathy of the musicians and the clarity of the music was foremost. Track followed track with titles like People Say Stuff, Don’t Be Disheartened and What You Hold in Your Heart – that latter conjuring a filmic atmosphere of an Arizona desert through a gentle guitar duet, the two voices distinct yet complementary, David Preston’s liquid runs balanced by Tara Cunningham’s more angular creativity.
Seb Rochford’s Finding Ways
There was a similar yin-yang at play in Finding Ways itself, a neatly constructed piece that could have been a noughties TV theme and rewarded Anders Christensen, the patiently stoic bass player who generally held things together with disciplined simplicity, with a moment of cosmic soloing. It’s fair to say that despite (or maybe because of?) being bandleader and composer the drummer didn’t really give himself a solo. Though there were moments of collective improvisation he largely provided a steady structured rhythm to each different number.
Finding Ways – Adrian Utley, David Preston, Seb Rochford
The album Finding Ways sports a number of illustrious guests and, while guitarist John Parish was sitting in the audience Adrian Utley came onstage for the final couple of tunes, including Start Your Morning Right, a quietly reflective progression of ambient nudges that suited the Portishead guitarist very well. And then there was an encore, of course, a new as-yet unnamed tune that finally let its hair down (oops – sorry Seb!) with a super tight boogie full of unexpected changes and a 10-time coda to finish. Needless to say, by this time Seb Rochford’s smile was well and truly in place and shared by most of the audience.
Finding Ways – Tara Cunningham
Afterwards it was hard to put a finger on what exactly made this all feel so positive. Partly it had to do with the general excellence of the playing, especially Tara Cunningham who revealed yet another dimension to her seemingly infinite repertoire of styles. Certainly the tunes and arrangements avoided gloom and discord – even a tribute to the late Patrick Walden, Babyshambles bass player and friend of Seb’s who passed away last year, had a considered feel, with almost an echo of The Shadows in Tara’s twanging riff. It may have been more to do with the obvious sincerity behind both the tunesmithing and the collective will of the project. Whatever his secret, a bit of uplift and hope was very welcome in these troubled times and for that we were grateful to Seb Rochford as we found our separate ways home in the rain.
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