Steve Rodda
Electric Guitar
Social
About
Steve Rodda is a UK East Midlands jazz guitarist known for his work in contemporary swing jazz. He is a member of P.R.S., the house band at Stray's Coffee Shop in Newark, Nottinghamshire, where the group performs regular residencies featuring jazz standards and original material. Frequent collaborators in P.R.S. include pianist and vocalist Fiona Stein, bassist Matt Short, and drummer Si Potts. Rodda also performs with the group Decent Chaps, a mainstream jazz ensemble incorporating swing and blues, and leads his own small ensembles. He has released the album Begin The Beguine and other standards, featuring interpretations of Cole Porter and other American Songbook composers alongside Latin jazz pieces. His performances are extensively documented on his YouTube channel, which contains over 200 videos.
Trivia
Steve Rodda's YouTube channel, under the handle @Rods52, carries the motto "Vanity all is vanity." His most popular tracks on SoundCloud include "Anouman," a piece associated with the Django Reinhardt tradition. His repertoire extends beyond American standards to include Latin jazz pieces such as "Quizas Quizas Quizas" by Osvaldo Farres. Although primarily known as a jazz guitarist, he maintains a deep appreciation for reggae, ska, country, and blues.
Early Life
Steve Rodda first picked up the guitar in 1976. Just a year later, in 1977, he formed a reggae and ska band that performed primarily original compositions, immersing himself in genres that were experiencing significant growth in British popular culture during the late 1970s. He pursued formal education at Bishop Grosseteste University College in Lincoln, England. His musical development was shaped by three primary influences spanning different eras of jazz guitar: Django Reinhardt, the pioneering Gypsy jazz guitarist; Martin Taylor, the contemporary British jazz virtuoso; and Julian Lage, whose work bridges jazz tradition with more experimental approaches. This combination of self-directed formation through reggae and ska alongside formal university training created the hybrid musical sensibility that characterizes his later work.
Steve Rodda Solos
2021
Electric Guitar solo - Well, You Needn't - 2021
4/4 funk in F major at 191 BPM