Acoustic Alchemy is a British contemporary instrumental and smooth jazz band formed in England in the early 1980s (c. 1981), originally fronted by acoustic guitarists Nick Webb and Simon James. The band is currently fronted by Greg Carmichael and Miles Gilderdale. During the 1980s, there was little grateful audience for this form of music in the UK, and the big players in the genre were all American.
Omar Sosa is one of the most versatile jazz artists on the scene today: composer, arranger, producer, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. He fuses a wide range of world music and electronic elements with his native Afro-Cuban roots to create a fresh and original urban sound
Heavily influenced by David Sanborn, instrumentalist Jaared is a Washington, DC-based alto and soprano saxophonist who has made smooth jazz and crossover jazz his primary focus in the ‘90s and 2000s; other saxophonists (alto, tenor, soprano or otherwise) who have had a direct or indirect impact on Jaared's playing include Grover Washington, Jr., Nelson Rangell, Ronnie Laws and George Howard. Jaared is capable of playing other types of instrumental music, including fusion, soul-jazz and post-bop--and he is no stranger to R&B.
Rising from Oakland's vibrant underground, FEMI celebrates a trio of life forces on her debut EP, "Sweet Water Soul." It has love, the gift of prayer, and is fluid like water, which is the underlying theme of the EP. In tandem with FEMI's jazzy vocals, sensual lyrics, and gracious intent, the result is an unrivaled suite of original songs equally danceable and reverent. For the past 5 years, FEMI helped pioneer a visionary music community in her native Bay Area. She is often categorized as a neo-SOUL soulstress and compared with artists such as Sade, Prince and Minnie Ripperton.
Mixing R&B, funk, jazz and samba elements, Banda Black Rio, led by Oberdan Magalhães, were one of the first to undertake the fusion of Brazilian rhythms with international black music. Formed in 1976, the band's unique and pioneering samba-jazz-funk sound has attracted thousands of worshiping fans across generations. The band broke up in 1980, but came back together in 1999 in a new formation led by William Magalhães, Oberdan Magalhães' son. Discography:
# 1977 - Maria Fumaça
# 1978 - Gafieira Universal
Ed Motta is an mpb / mobo / jazz artist, born Eduardo Motta (17 Aug 1971), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At the end of the 80's Ed Motta burst upon the music scene as a major singer and one of Conexão Japeri's composers and producers. He was an instant success on the carioca show circuit and his 1988 debut album, "Conexão Japeri" (Warner), confirmed it. Songs like "Manuel", "Vamos dançar", "Baixo Rio" and "Um love" became big hits. The songs were marked by lavish musicality and introduced strong soul and funk components into the pop-rock scene that was the rage in Brazil at the time.
Howard Alden (born October 17, 1958) is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. He has recorded a long series of albums for Concord Records. His performances were dubbed over Sean Penn as 'Emmet Ray' in the 1999 Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown. He has produced several albums with George Van Eps. Howard Alden began playing tenor guitar at age ten and the banjo in his teens. As a teenager he played both instruments at various venues in the Los Angeles area.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1969, James Carter began playing saxophone at age 11, first recorded with a Detroit student ensemble in 1986 and, by 1991, had recorded with legendary trumpeter Lester Bowie on The Organizer and contributed to the 1991 collection The Tough Young Tenors. Mastering a family of reed instruments, from sopranino to contrabass saxophones to contrabass and bass clarinets, James Carter mesmerized the jazz world after arriving in New York City in 1988 to play under the auspices of Lester Bowie.
Tribal Tech is a progressive fusion band, originally formed in 1984 by guitarist Scott Henderson and bass player Gary Willis. The band includes Scott Kinsey on keyboard and Kirk Covington on drums, and has produced nine CDs that stretch the borders between blues, jazz, and rock. The band is widely regarded for the prodigious talents of its individual members and for its importance to the modern fusion music scene, but has informally dissolved following the release of 2000's Rocket Science, with the various members pursuing solo careers.
Laurent De Wilde, the Mid-Atlantic piano player of the year, is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure. This school and a few others like it are called Les Grandes Ecoles and they are comparable to the Ivy League. They produce the elite in this country. And so it seemed appropriate to ask De Wilde: "What's a nice guy like you doing in a métier like this?" He replied with a very American have-a-nice-day croon: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."