contemporary jazz

Andrew Pekler was born in Samarkand, Uzbekistan (then U.S.S.R.). His family immigrated to the U.S., eventually settling in Monterey, California. In the mid 90s he moved to Heidelberg, Germany to attend university. Since 2000 he has been living and working in Berlin.

Under his own name he has produced two records for the ̃scape label, Station to Station (2002) and Nocturnes, False Dawns and Breakdowns (2004) as well as releasing Strings + Feedback (2005) on Staubgold. His latest album Cue, was released in June 2007 on Kranky (Chicago, USA).

Born February 6, 1950, Natalie Cole is the daughter of celebrated crooner Nat King Cole, she was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age and began performing at the age of 11. Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, won her immediate praise, with the smash single This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, a category that had been monopolized by Aretha Franklin. She also was named the Grammys' Best New Artist of 1975. She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, MA.

The playing career of saxophonist Tony Kofi began when he chanced upon a series of jazz workshops, run in Leicester by Nick Hislam. Born in Nottingham to West African parents, Tony was bitten by the jazz bug and made a point of making the journey to go along to each session. This laid the seeds for what was to come, and a stint at the legendary Berklee College of Music in Boston Mass. USA, on a full scholarship. While in the US, Tony studied with such musical luminaries as Andy Magee, Ernie Watts and Billy Pierce, gaining invaluable experience that he then put to best use when back in the UK.

There is more than one artist with this name: 1) Polar Bear is a British jazz band led by drummer Seb Rochford. Signed to the Babel Label, their first album Dim Lit was a small-scale success. Their second album, Held on the Tips of Fingers, merged elements of cool jazz, funk, dance music, free jazz, electronica, and Drum and Bass, and was a crossover hit, earning Polar Bear a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize in 2005. The success was all the more unusual for a largely instrumental album. The album was nominated for a BBC Jazz Award 2006. They are part of the F-IRE Collective.