Pianist Rachel Eckroth has played almost every style of music and performed at almost every iconic venue worldwide. Now, she’s taking her trio on tour to promote her new acoustic jazz EP, ‘This Is One Of Those Moments’: a poised and peppery record.
“Acoustic jazz is where I started,” she says, after dialling in from Arizona on a 25-Celsius day in early October. “I’m trying to get back to working on that side of my art because that’s where I’m from. With this EP, I pushed myself not to stop too soon with my compositions. I could write tunes all day but they’d only be eight bars long, so I wanted to make myself write things that have a longer story. That’s how I’m thinking about composition these days.”
The EP is a patiently unfurling 35-minute tale that reflects Eckroth’s commitment to unhurried storytelling. The pianist initially intended to capture a full-length album, including contributions from alto saxophone and electronics. To optimise the flow of the record, she decided to strip it back to a pure acoustic trio EP with bassist Emma Dayhuff and drummer Tina Raymond performing five Eckrothian originals. Those compositions, as well as a handful of the unreleased tunes and four completely new pieces, make up the setlist for the group’s autumn tour of the UK and EU—including a gig at Ronnie Scott’s in London at 6:30pm on Wednesday, 15 October.
“The shows feature the same trio from the EP,” she says. “We have a great time together as friends and they’re really strong musicians, so I can count on them to support me. I never have to explain much. We just find the music together. They aren’t afraid to get weird and they can go in any direction, which is important to me… because I tend to go off in a lot of directions.”
That inclination to zigzag down multiple paths is perhaps the defining quality of Eckroth’s career to date. She is a core member of the stage and studio group supporting alternative musician St. Vincent. Eckroth has also regularly performed with singer-songwriters KT Tunstall and Rufus Wainwright, as well as jazz trumpeter Chris Botti. Her career has even included stints playing in house bands for TV broadcasts such as the Meredith Vieira Show and Saturday Night Live.
“The whole variety thing sort of started from needing to pay my bills, honestly,” she says. “What happened was just a lot of saying ‘yes’ when I was younger. But I didn’t want to sound like crap, so I had to study and try things. I had to learn synthesisers and how to programme, so over time I figured out how to put myself in different mindsets for each type of music. Then opportunities came along because people knew I could do a variety of things and would hire me.”
Despite her wide-ranging musical adventures, Eckroth’s heart has always belonged to jazz. Her solos luxuriate in open space, letting listeners savour each phrase before the next arrives. “Phrasing is like the way we speak,” she says. “I try to make choices that make sense for the music. One thing I can say is that, when I was learning to improvise, I didn’t want to memorise patterns or play other people’s licks. I avoided that. Really, I just love jazz and improvisation.”
Eckroth loves orchestrating, too. For this year’s BBC Proms, she put that passion into action by arranging St. Vincent’s songs for a performance alongside Jules Buckley and his orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. She started writing for big bands at the age of just eighteen and has never stopped. A large-ensemble recording is high up on the pianist’s wishlist for the future.
Eckroth’s list of ambitions for the years ahead is long. Her list of achievements in 2025 is also pretty substantial. This Is One Of Those Moments is her second release as a title artist this year, for example. It follows a duo release with drummer John Hadfield, Speaking In Tongues (Adhyaropa Records), that is currently under consideration for a potential Grammy nomination. If successful, it would mark Eckroth’s second listing—after her 2021 record The Garden (Rainy Days Records) made the shortlist in the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album category.
“Right now, I want to stick with this trio and keep it building for a while,” she says. “We’re doing two more tours next year. I’m also going to record a full album next April, so I’ve got six months to prepare for that much bigger-scale thing. And during the session for this trio EP we also did some electric stuff, like a Miles Davis thing, so that’s another project rolling around in my mind.”
It’s hard to imagine there’s much room for rolling around in Eckroth’s project-packed and prolific headspace. The pianist is a uniquely versatile performer and an uncommonly sensitive improviser. Her new EP may provide a way to reconnect with her acoustic-jazz starting point, but there’s no guessing where she’ll go next.
