Press Quotes
"impressive control and imagination" "distinctive" - Smiths Academy Informer, Martin King
"a player who can tell a story that captivates and brings us back for more" - Gary Bayley
“inspirational” and “immense” - Jazzwise
“original and imaginative” - Mike Westbrook
“phenomenal” “awesome” “time-splintering” - London Jazz News
“I’ve yet to hear a cliché in Roz Harding’s improvising. Her lines are original, her articulation personal and highly expressive. She comes to this music fresh, without a lot of jazz baggage, and her playing is a constant surprise.” - Mike Westbrook, review of Dave Holdsworth New Brew gig
"The beautiful Tender Love & Bebop de Rigeur from Citadel/Room 315 featured the phenomenal Roz Harding on alto. She is such a powerful, confident player, easily holding her own with regular Westbrook reeds Alan Wakeman & Pete Whyman who themselves played magnificently throughout. Billie Bottle took the lead on another Bigger Show number, the textually bleak but musically fulsome Gas, Dust, Stone, notable for another time-splintering solo from Roz Harding while Coach York fearlessly drove the 12/8." - London Jazz News, Richard Lee review of Mike Westbrook Uncommon Orchestra at Ronnie Scotts
"a truly personal approach"- Gary Bayley
"Roz Harding shone on alto sax" - Jazzwise, Jon Carvell
"The fire and adventurousness of Roz Harding’s playing seemed to channel the spirit of two of Westbrook’s most individual early band members, Mike Osborne and Bernie Living, without actually sounding much like them." - Jazz Journal, Barry Withernden
“It’s also an opportunity for saxophonist Roz Harding to show her undoubted talent and flexibility of approach, never failing to impress whether with the Westbrook Orchestra or in the smaller settings of Dave Holdsworth’s group or here.
In Big Baby Hips, she adds to the dislocation of the distorted guitars, whilst her solo on Weltende Begins mixes abstraction with pure notes, exploring the range of sound. Going into Weltende, her melodic alto leads into the poem of Jakob Van Hoddis, the catastrophic events given a theatrical cabaret slant.” - Matthew Wright, Jazz Journal. Review of Kate Westbrook & The Granite Band: Earth Felt The Wound
"At the centre of 'Freedom’s Crown' is an impassioned alto saxophone solo by Roz Harding" - Chris Searle, Morning Star
"I’ve written before about the awesome Roz Harding and her contributions tonight only raise the praise index." - London Jazz News, Richard Lee review of Kate Westbrook's GRANITE at Kings Place
"The voices give over to the first of a couple of beautifully constructed alto saxophone solos from Roz Harding, a name new to me but one definitely to watch." - Gary Corbett, Ukvibe.org
"Alan Wakeman and Roz Harding on saxophones are top notch and the jazz rock rhythms romp along at full swing." - Financial Times, Life & Arts, Mike Hobart
"Remiss as it is of me to point out a star of the band, I must however give much praise for sax player Roz Harding's powerful and inspirational playing" - The Progressive Aspect, Roger Trenwith review of Billie Bottle and The Multiple
“With excellent acoustics and sound-mixing this exhilarating performance of an enthralling work struck me as funkier than the version on CD, but no less emotionally varied. Westbrook continues to be a master at creating powerful, all-pervading ensembles, brilliantly threading solos into the overall texture and structure whilst still providing ample space and opportunity for each player to stretch out and maintain their individual voices. Amongst those voices, all of whom were admirable, one of the younger participants, Roz Harding on alto, particularly impressed, managing to recall early Westbrook sidemen Mike Osborne and Bernie Living in her sound and phrasing yet retaining her own character.” - Jazz Journal, Review of Mike Westbrook & Company A BIGGER SHOW
"Freedom's Crown (dedicated to Bristol's great planning guru Stephen J Hewitt) set up the brass, rhythm section and vocals in benign contradiction, the filmic swoop of the voices set against Roz Harding's perversely squally alto saxophone. She was the discovery of the night - a powerful and distinctive player who blossomed across the evening, delivering terse slashes or tumultuous cascades with perfect judgement. Lovers Galore, a defiantly positive blast against the bleak universe and hollow cyberspace previously outlined, with soaring electric guitars and a rolling riff plus a final blistering alto solo from Roz Harding" - Tony Benjamin, review of Mike Westbrook & Company A BIGGER SHOW
"Alto saxophonist Roz Harding always impresses but damn near surpasses her own high standards on the lovely waltz "Freedom's Crown," as she plays both within and against the prevailing orchestral accompaniment, rhythmically and harmonically." - All About Jazz, Duncan Heining review of Mike Westbrook & Company: A Bigger Show - Live
///SUPERMOOD LIVE
ROZ HARDING [SAX] + MIKE OUTRAM [GUITAR] + JIM BASHFORD [DRUMS]
///SUPERMOOD is a project making modern music rooted in jazz. Compositions by Roz Harding, band sound by everyone. Since emerging in 2013 SUPERMOOD defined a captivating live sound ("Adventurous and moving" - Deirdre Cartwright). The music descibed as "fresh and imaginative" (Martin King - Smiths Academy Informer) is fuelled by improvisation, dramatic rhythms, movement and breath, raw textures and introspective melodies. Influences for Roz's music include Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Frederick Alexander and his technique, Art Pepper, Jeff Buckley, Prince, Nick Drake, Manic Street Preachers and Jackie McLean.
"Adventurous and moving" - Deirdre Cartwright
"What really impresses is the way the group works together as a single entity with a common musical purpose, a focus on the material itself. Roz's tunes, such as Fifty-two fifty, If you could, Sun wish and Yesterday I was on time, have many angular rhythmic and harmonic moments but remain accessible to listeners. The transition from composed to improvised sections was often seamless and the whole thing sounded very fresh and imaginative, free from the bebop clichés and Trane-isms which - liberating though they are - can actually straightjacket many a fine player. The Vortex jazz crowd loved it and their appearance here was an unqualified success. Their future looks exciting." Martin King - Smiths Academy Informer
"Roz Harding can appear a reluctant leader compared to other saxophonists fronting their bands, but with this project she has a forum for her metier. What happens is that rather than make extended solo statements - with underlying support - she offers conversational fragments for the others to respond to; in turn her solo is shaped by the resulting fabric of sounds. Few saxophonists comes to mind as such truly dialectical improvisers (perhaps Sam Rivers and Ingrid Laubrock). This approach makes for a group resonance, a shifting dynamic equilibrium; one's eyes dart between the members trying to work out when she is leading and when she is following (perhaps a new riddle arises out of this! question: when is a soloist not a soloist, answer: Roz Harding). The spectacles of evolving scenes are both exciting and moving as prodigious techniques and craft skills are made to serve artistic creativity. Her combination of the aural and the visual makes for great entertainment besides great art; Roz is a textbook case that supports Dalacroze's idea. His eurhythmics, the art of interpreting music through bodily movements, stresses the aesthetic sense of musical structures. We get (warmly) to see her expressing her real-time musical-experiences as feelings, rather than get to abstract and intuit her demonstrating (coldly) her musical-knowledge." - Excerpt from Gary Bayley's 'Architecture and A Sense Of The City'.