Seb Rochford & Kit Downes

Seb Rochford & Kit Downes

'Rather than reflecting the sense of a tribute, Rochford's pieces, as implied by some of the titles, reveal a personal catharsis.' - All About Jazz

London-based drummer Sebastian Rochford (aka, Seb) and pianist Kit Downes have a long working history but have recorded only once as a duo on the EP Live @ The Vortex (Loop Collective, 2012). They reunite on the poignant and cerebral A Short Diary. Rochford began his relationship with ECM Records as part of the Andy Sheppard-led Trio Libero (2012). He led a Mercury Prize-nominated experimental jazz band called Polar Bear and played with Sons of Kemet, David Byrne, Brian Eno, Herbie Hancock, and Patti Smith. He has led the band Pulled by Magnets since 2018.

TOUR DATES: 

10 January 2024 – Norwich Arts Centre – Norwich – UK
11 January 2024 – Kings Place – London – UK
12 January 2024 – Turner Sims – Southampton – UK
14 January 2024 – Band On The Wall – Manchester – UK
18 January 2024 – The Glasshouse International Centre for Arts and Music – Gateshead – UK
8 August 2024 – Sildajazz – Haugesund – NO

Downes has recorded three acclaimed albums on the ECM label. He frequently tours throughout Europe and the U.S., playing the piano, church organ, and harmonium. He has worked with Thomas Strønen and Django Bates and written commissioned works for Cologne Philharmonic and BBC Radio among others.

Collaborators for more than a decade, Rochford and Downes compiled shared material as a duo in 2015 but decided not to record those compositions. ‘A Short Diary’ is composed by Rochford with the exception of “Even Now I Think of Her” which was written by his father, Gerard Rochford, a Scottish Poet Laureate, who passed away in 2019. Sebastian Rochford describes the music, written in honour of his father, as feeling “like an extension of what we had started before.”

‘As my parents always loved music being played at home and we would not be able to keep the house, I thought to record the music there, also as a sonic memory of where I grew up, played on my grandfather’s piano, gifted to us by my father’s brother, a tribute to the wonderful, kind-hearted man I called my dad.’Sebastian Rochford.

AGENT: Agnese Daverio

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