Polar Bear – Peepers
Polar Bear – All Here
I’m in the middle of grading in the last two weeks of the semester, so this one is more brief that perhaps the record deserves. This record has been out for the better part of two months, but I only just received it a week ago. Polar Bear is a UK collective of musicians, which I think represents the best in truly “modern” jazz, though it’s very easy to hesitate calling them a jazz band at all. They don’t have a single sound, sometimes they are funky (as on “Happy For You,” “Bap Bap Bap,” and the title track), sometimes a bit dissonant (“Drunken Pharoah”), sometimes wholly dissonant (“Scream” which I wish was a bit longer than just 30 seconds), but always interesting.
Though they are from the UK, drummer and leader Sebastian Rochford clearly has a little bit of New Orleans in him, with his very expressive style in drumming and always with a healthy amount of soul. That is definitely on display in the title track “Peepers” which begins with a drum pattern that has “Honky Tonk Women,” written all over it, before launching into a mid-tempo vamp with some nice sputtering horn work and some interesting tempo changes.
However, it’s the closer “All Here” that is truly a revelation for me. The slower tempo should bring a sense of melancholy, but it doesn’t, at least not for my ears. Perhaps it’s in the bright and airy notes from the saxophone solos, but it feels more like coming home after a long day to the one you love and all the warmth and comfort that you share. Just a marvelous experience to close out a thoroughly enjoyable record. Here’s to hoping that the gents in Polar Bear make their way out to the States at some point in the near future.