Italian Groove Collective – Italian Groove Collective
On December 9 of last year, the debut album of the Italian Groove Collective (IGC) was released. This Italian national collective combines groove with jazz and funk. The album has been released both digitally and on CD, and was recently handed to me.
Fifty-five well-known musicians, all professionals, known as soloists or as session musicians, gathered during the lockdown to breathe life into this new project. Their goal was to create something new, with great artistic value, but which can be appreciated by any music lover.
The IGC is divided into a recording project, through MTmusic’s management, along with a live project. The beautiful, first single, and also the opener of the CD, ‘Smart Working’, was already heard on the radio in October 2021, and the solid successor ‘Jump Through Hoops’ in August of last year.
David started out his musical career as an MC/DJ during the iconic era of Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow, and Grandmaster Flash. Having spent many of his early years producing rap acts, like all producers from the era, Williams sampled soul, jazz, and funk records from the 70s.
Jeremy Green started playing the electric guitar when he was twelve, when he snuck into his brother’s room to strum his Ibanez Roadstar Custom. Three years later he was already playing semi-professionally in Southern Ontario, Canada in small clubs and at parties.
From a young age, sisters Dominique, Annick and Véronique Clarisse sang from the small island of Mauritius. Now 30 years later they still do. They have already appeared on stage or in the studio with Erasure, Basia, Incognito, Howard Jones, Matt Bianco and Chris de Burgh.
In the 90’s, Atlanta was a melting pot for burgeoning soul music, house music DJ’s and an underground jazz scene. Khari Cabral Simmons stood at the point where all of these met, as an upcoming bassist and bandleader. It was in this creatively fertile environment that Khari made his start in music. He started playing bass for many of the artists in the scene, such as Bilal Sunni Ali (Sun Ra), Donnie (The Colored Section), Gaelle (Naked Music) and India Arie. He also started to do recording sessions, playing on house music recordings, including a remix for KD Lang. After a few years of recording dance and soul music, Khari started looking to make his own vehicle for upbeat soulful music. It was then that he created Jiva. Jiva would go on to play all over the Atlanta area, performing alongside artists like Roy Ayers and Incognito.
Paris born guitar virtuoso Emmanuel “U-Nam” Abiteboul is the driving force behind the project California Funk Machine. This year he surprised the world with Volume I, a collection of selected pieces of funk history that brought it the greatest success and had a decisive impact on it. Volume 2 is is the logical continuation with new power hits.
Paris born guitar virtuoso Emmanuel “U-Nam” Abiteboul always had a great affinity for funk. This passion runs through his entire life’s work and reaches its peak with the California Funk Machine. Volume I is a collection of selected pieces of funk history that brought it the greatest success and had a decisive impact on it.
SoulMusic Records is very proud to present “Brother, Brother: The GRP/Arista Anthology,” a musically superb anthology by renowned trumpeter, musician and songwriter Tom Browne, covering his five-year tenure (1979-1984), firstly with GRP Records then with Arista Records.
Smooth Jazz Daily 