“Basically, I’d been making music here with different people…” he says, dipping the volume and aiming a finger over his shoulder to the disorder of drums and recording gear sprayed around the floor behind him, before prodding it into his now-legendary bushy aureole. “…doing Hip-Hop production stuff, working on tunes with people like (flautist and saxophonist)Finn Peters and Blessed Beats, who’s been making grime tunes since he was fourteen. Then I made this track with (Asian vocalist and composer) Ranjana Ghatak and (L.A-based spoken word poet) Gina Loring which I sent to Tony (Morley, label Boss) and asked him if he would be interested in releasing it, and it was Tony that suggested we make it into something special..”.
Following further discussions between Rochford and the Leaf chief, that special something – as it will transpire across the coming year – is to be a series of ‘single’ releases , twelve highly contrasting download tracks pairing Rochford with a different collaborator a month of his own choosing that, if all goes to plan, will climax in a swanky twelve track vinyl package to be released in December. “I thought it would be fun to record and release tracks that I make here with various people, I’m thinking of calling it Days and Nights at the Takeaway..” he reveals smiley-faced, most likely at the proposed moniker for these releases arriving from the fact his home and makeshift studio for these recordings was formally part of a jumbo-sized Jamaican cuisine, which not only explains his eye for such huge habitat , but highlights a tireless craving he has to compose, create and perform new music ‘day or night’, whenever and wherever the music takes him.
“I started writing before I went to do music at college, in Aberdeen somebody gave me a drum machine which had other sounds on it and I started then. Then at college (in Newcastle) my piano teacher there Kevin James was complimentary of my ideas and introduced me to stuff like Monk and Duke Ellington. Moving to London I didn’t have an instrument so I had nothing to do music on, which is when I started writing from my head at that point. I was walking around London writing tunes in my head and then later putting them down on manuscript. I still do all the Polar Bear stuff like that. I now of course use a piano because its quicker, I can see where the notes are!”
If it goes without saying that the inspired composer and drummer in Rochford surfaced out of the intricate and forked energy of the Seb-led Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear albums (not to mention their equally potent live shows), then it is perhaps been his extra-curriculum collaborations over the last few years – caught up in the wiring of Leafcutter John’s electronic ventures, manning the desk as producer of MC Mikill’s EP of squeamish wordplay, or maybe just lost in the symphonic lull of (his other Mercury entry) Basquiat Strings – that has ultimately stressed Rochford’s raw diversity and sensitivity as a musician, chalking his name into the album credits and concert personnels of major leaguers like Andy Sheppard, Patti Smith, Adele, former Libertine Carl Barat, Suede’s Brett Anderson, Brian Eno and Herbie Hancock to name-check but a few.
Despite the notion that debating such musical triumphs isn’t on his to do list, the modest Scot’s preference to be probed about his family life ” my biggest influence, when I was a kid they played me everything..”, the current U.K jazz scene ” sometimes things just go round in cycles, like in the late sixties and early seventies and what was happening then with Jazz, I think it’s just another moment. ” and his own Mercury moments that ” opened doors and put us under the view for a few minutes” proves enlightening before the aforementioned track featuring the “chopped up space vocal” of Ranjana Ghatak is cued (and cranked) up, and conversation zips back to the ‘Takeaway’ tasks ahead of him.
” It’s going to be a lot of hard work..” he says, sipping on a steaming peppermint tea ,cross-legged on the floor beside what appears to be a healthy stockpile of CDs wedged tight into the disused quarters of an old open fire. “..but it’s what I am learning along the way, and a way of finding new stuff . I feel more confident with my ideas, and also having more confidence in myself. I went through years of just wanting to be or sound like Tony Williams or Elvin Jones, but then you sort of come to the conclusion you’re not Tony Williams or you’re not Elvin Jones, but you are you, and as great as those players are, I will never be ever as great as they are, but that doesn’t mean that what I have to say musically is invalid”
If the intoxicating mash-up of ‘spliced’ Ranjana over Rochford’s scattergun-like drum score that now resonates around the takeaway’s white-washed walls doesn’t ooze clues to the project’s potential, then the cast of credibles already confirmed from his wish list of ‘wannaworkwith’ collaborators should score big support from the loyal and just plain curious. ” This stuff will be aimed at a varied audience. The tunes will all be very different. For instance I’m gonna be doing stuff with a really young MC from Tottenham who I found on YouTube called Young Fresh; he’s like eighteen or something. Then there’s Soumik Datta who’s a Sarod player from India that lives here, and I’m also doing a track with producer and guitarist Leo Abrahams, that one is a bit abstract..”
Mercury nominations and the string of A-list sessions aside, there’s an inkling – possibly in his body language, or the way Rochford’s usual tranquil and shy self is temporarily rumbled romanticising the fact he’s been given the key to curate and conduct such sessions, or that he’s only just recently snared American sax virtuoso Matana Roberts into guesting on a track – that these releases will expose many other sides to this gifted and hungry musician, and reveal his packed potential at (what a recent Ronnie’s listing described as) ” the forefront of the multi-genre zeitgeist currently sweeping the U.K music scene”.”Well, with Matana I played a couple of gigs with her last year and felt a real strong connection” he explains. “She gave me a vinyl copy of her album which was amazing, and I made a tune out of it just using the vinyl, which I think we may put out along with the track we’re doing together”.
Without stretching things too far by adding Jim’ll Fix It-like connotations to how he’s ” ninety-percent got one of my favourite piano players but it’s just emails at the moment ” or how there are other ” very special guests” interested that unfortunately can’t be disclosed until deals are sealed, to Rochford – a musician sensitive and long-seduced by many avenues of the game, having raised hell playing punky jazz with the Ladyland on Later..with Jools to essaying the snappiest soul groove in the studio with Adele – it’s a dream come true.
“Well hardcore was the sort of music I started playing,,” he confesses. “I love bands like Bad Brains and Carcass, and I’m really glad I know that extremity of music. I think that when you do, you can’t really go back, to know what it feels like to play hardcore. But then I love really quiet music, from been played Bill Evans from when I was a kid, and I see them as the same thing, whether you’re thrashing hard at the drums or making tiny little sounds, it’s the music..”
Of course, qualities like this in jazz musicians, let alone ‘jazz drummers’, are as few and far between as Nirvana nuts digging Coltrane or the number of snotty jazz purists out there with full-on fetishes for fizzy pop, deep ambient or the current grime scene. But given Rochford’s commitment to genre-hopping and to his growing army of faithful fans that have zeroed in on his prickly prose and “I just see music as music ” mentality since he crept into the capital over ten years ago, it’s really a no-brainer that Leaf jumped on him for the ‘Takeaway’ job, and for the same reasons London Jazz hot-spot The Vortex singled him out to curate his own ten day festival before his diary got heavy again and he and Algiers-born French bassist Michel Benita were swept into the studio to record (and now tour) Andy Sheppard’s latest Trio Libero album..the kid is big business right now.
And as if sleep is of no significance, and to gasps from those floored by the barrage of work he has already thrown himself into this year, Rochford concludes his recital of diary appointments (for now) by casually announcing a his plans to also stick out a new Polar Bear LP his year ” I’ve got one tune written so far”, letting slip he has ” started the new (MC Jyager vs Polar Bear ) Jyager Bear album, recorded some stuff with (saxophonist) Shabaka Hutchings and played on the Kit Downes’ new record here in this room..” before the kettle is kick-started again and it’s back to brewing up a storm with big beats and the Beasties, and that hip demo still afloat in his humble little head.
‘Love a Sacred Path’ featuring Gina Loring and Ranjana Ghatak is available from www.thetakeaway.net from January 27th
