Polar Bears and other drumming

And as for my favourite drummer -Sebastian Rochford. I'm losing count how many times I've seen him, having seen Polar Bear, Rochford's own band, several times; plus Basquiat Strings featuring him on drums; plus Ingrid Laubrock Quintet; also Seb and Andy Shepherd at Snape Maltings at the end of a week's residency, where they had been composing together.

Polar Bear's 'Held on the Tips of Fingers' was nominated for a Mercury award in 2005, as was Sebastian himself in 2007 for 'Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford'. He is part of the F-IRE collective, which includes the Basquiat Strings and Laubrock.
The line-up of Polar Bear of two saxophonists (Pete Wareham and Mark Lockhart, who also play with Rochford in Acoustic Ladyland) double bassist Tom Herbert, and Seb on drums, was added to by Leafcutter John with assorted electronica in 2004.

Watching Seb is magical, he continually experiments and looks as if  he is as surprised with the results as the audience. This sense of wonder is accompanied by a quiet, intense stage presence, where he charms the crowd with what appears to be an innocent naivety and gentle sense of humour which extends to titles of tunes, which seem to be continually developing, such as 'Fluffy (I want you)'. He recounts how he wrote a tune when his girlfriend was leaving him, then qualifies this with, well not as she was ACTUALLY leaving, or he wouldn't have been paying attention. And of course there's the famous hair and elfin features, which somehow belie his years.I met him when I was helping with a local jazz club, and he was the only performer who helped me put away the chairs at the end, quietly chatting.

Apparently recently he has been working with Herbie Hancock and Corinne  Bailey  Rae, and in the past has worked with David Burne and Brian Eno plus Babyshambles.