The Easy Rollers keep the jazz age alive at Stoller Hall
Now entering their tenth year of captivating audiences with an incredible repertoire of own songwriting and arrangements, jazz septet The Easy Rollers return to the city where it all began to embark on their most high-profile UK tour yet. Ahead of their performance at Stoller Hall this April, the first on their tenth anniversary tour, we chatted to saxophonist Jamie Stockbridge to find out about their Manchester origins, how the last 10 years have shaped the band, and what we can expect at their show.
Can you tell us about your special connection to this city?
The band was formed in Manchester, on Oxford Road. Our first gigs were in bars and cafes around town, and now to have travelled around the country, released some records, written some new music, and to be starting the tour in a venue like the Stoller Hall feels like a nice full-circle moment for everybody.
This year will mark ten years of The Easy Rollers. Can you tell us a bit about your journey?
So, the band met at the Music College. Our first gigs were actually in the bar there! That bled into trying to find some other opportunities just to play. We ended up at the Edinburgh Fringe for a while, and that slow growth culminated in playing the lunchtime series at the Bridgewater Hall. That felt like a moment where we now were able to communicate ourselves to rooms that have a certain amount of prestige associated with them, and that galvanised us for this tour to play at places like Stoller Hall. We’ve all seen world-leading artists here before, and it feels like this tour is the next step up the rung for us as a band.
It all started with us cramming into a corner of a small sweaty pub somewhere in South Manchester, so now to be in a large, less sweaty not-pub does feel like we’re heading in the right direction!
How has your music changed over the last ten years, and how do you keep the sound fresh?
What’s been exciting with our most recent album is that we’re not only playing music from 100 years ago, but we’re writing brand new music that draws on those ideas, and that feels like an exciting place to be. Having a foot in both camps as a writer of music myself, it’s a lovely challenge to have.
Audiences can expect to come along and see a band that doesn’t present this stuff as just a museum piece. We’re still trying to keep it very much alive and as fresh and exciting as the original 78 records would have been. They’re still massively interesting and energetic and brave to listen to, and we want to try and communicate that sort of energy with what we do, so it felt natural to try and write some original pieces as part of that. At our Stoller Hall show, we’ll be playing all the original stuff on the record, and this will be the first time that audiences can hear some of these new pieces.
What can audiences expect at Stoller Hall’s show, the first on your UK tour?
Whenever any music has got an element of improvisation or live interaction involved, I think what’s fun is it feels different across an entire run of gigs. You’re also seeing us surprise one another and wrong-foot one another and excite one another with how things come out differently than it did the day before, and coming to day one of a tour, you always get this candid snapshot. It’s often incredibly energetic because we’re all so excited to finally get it into the world, and you get everyone’s first expression of how they want those pieces of music to go. It feels different for us eight gigs on, and it probably feels different for an audience eight gigs on as well. On the first night of a tour, you get a really honest expression of what you want that music to sound like, and that’s particularly true when it’s something as interactive as making jazz music.
Catch The Easy Rollers at Stoller Hall on 16 April and be transported back to the golden age of jazz. Get your tickets on our What’s On page.
