nelson&djosa

Jamaica funk

2009-08-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

Jamaica Queens was the stage for a funk movement fuelled by a couple of musicians that had obviously done their homework. Don Blackman, Bernard Wright, Tom Browne, Bobby Broom, Lenny White, Marcus Miller and some other cats mainly from the GRP-house put the boogie in the funk and left the disco for what it was. All their grooves were tight, heavy, nasty, but very musical at the same time, a mix of P-funk and jazzfunk that came to the masses thanks to the biggest tune they did "Funkin'for Jamaica". These underappreciated legends all released albums during the late 70s and early 80s, and each and everyone of them is a killer. Check out Bernard Wright's album "Nard", you'll be shocked how many songs have been sampled in the last 2 decades. Here is the dedication mix we did, beware, dancing is a must:

The letter P in music, a mixtape

2009-08-12T17:34:00.000-07:00

Space Funk is a little cousin to the big Uncle Jam, George Clinton and his cleverly chosen army of virtuoso musicians, the P-Funk. This group based around producer/singer/writer George Clinton set the standard when it comes to the funk, and still people can't seem to copy that delicious sloppiness and anarchy inside the beauty of the songs. It's impossible to be comprehensive when it comes to Parliament, Funkadelic and the numerous spin-offs, often backed up by Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, the Horny Horns and their army of guitar players. We love the way they use analog synths in it's funkiest, nastiest forms, Bootsy's seemingly simple but stomping basslines, George's vocals and those Jimi-influenced overbended fuzzy guitars, it's the funk on the 1... Check out the tribute mix we did:

a journey through Herbie Hancock's wonderful music

2009-08-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

Another one of our great inspirators, being it as a songwriter, producer, singer, keyboardist or sideman, is Herbie Hancock. After winning big at the Grammy's he managed to draw attention to himself AGAIN, just like he did in the sixties composing Maiden Voyage and working as a sideman for Miles Davis among others, in the seventies with his supergroup the Headhunters best known for one his most defining songs Chameleon, and in the eighties once more with Rockit. Check out the beautiful structures he builds with synthesizers that we borrowed a lot from. Also check out Harvey Mason, one of the drummers Herbie worked with mostly during the seventies. The interaction between these virtuoso's has never been matched if you ask us... We compiled some of our favourites, some more obscure tracks, and some stuff he did on albums for Stevie, Chaka Khan and Milt Jackson.

Ronald Snijders

2009-08-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

Ronald Snijders is considered to be the most swinging flautist in the Netherlands thanks to his extreme skills and creativity, and fortunately this has not passed unnoticed, as he is appreciated by Chick Corea (“You’re a great flautist and an excellent composer… I’m sure people here in the United States will like your music a lot”) among others for his improvisation and compositions. His out-of-print records now run for 200 pounds in UK’s vintage record stores. He has released over twenty albums with innovative compositions of his own varying in style, always staying true to his Surinamese roots, but never afraid to shock the listener with complex jazz progressions and African, Brazilian and Caribbean rhythms in a mixture of jazz, funk, and African music reminiscent of the early work of Herbie Hancock, George Duke and the other masters of the seventies. Flautist/ composer Ronald Snijders was born in 1951 in Surinam, South America and lived from 1970 on in the Netherlands. He won several prizes for his musical expressions and released over 20 albums since his debut Natural Sources. This album, together with Quartz and Bijlmerjazz are considered classics to music lovers worldwide. Over the years he has gathered the cream of the Dutch crop to accompany him live or in the studio (Randal Corsen, Jesse van Ruller, Eric Calmes, Ishaq van Niel to name a few) and tours extensively across the globe in very diverse formations, from a one-man gig to a full-on Afro-Caribbean orchestra, doing gigs anywhere from Senegal to New York. Recently he released a live album recorded at the BIM-huis on his own label Black Straight Music. This guy is off the hook, we did two recordings for our new album and we were amazed, the expression: tear-jerking, his stories: very surprising! Check him out on Youtube:

Obama-Vision

2009-08-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Innavision sent me this picture by Dennis de Groot, together with Mindeye and Esperanza Spalding@Boogie Ball, somewhere that night after the North Sea Jazz Festival where the Jazzsolians did a DJ-gig back to back with Esperanza Spalding and Om'Mas Keith. Displaying their Obama shirts Innavision made himself, shirts are now up for pre-order, and guess what, their all one of a kind. The only thing is they don't have a price tag yet. I heard Esperanza ordered one...I want one with Stevie on it! Check this out, Esperanza Spalding at the White House performing for Obama, a tribute to Stevie Wonder, how appropriate:

Jazzsole

2009-08-06T14:38:00.000-07:00

Jazzsole, made up of Innavision and Mindeye, can back-up their names, definitely when it comes to music (and dancing). Together we created a series of gigs at Toko94 that were uncontainable and unconventional, putting artist that we're really a little too big for the venue in a miniclub, which is actually a restaurant...sounds weird, but it created some amazing musical memories, both for the crowd and the artists. You can check out snippets of their gigs on the Jazzsole Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/JazzSoleSession . Here are two little snippets of a gig Vikter Duplaix did at Toko94, backed up by an amazing band, shout out to Kenneth Crouch on keys (who also plays with George Duke, imagine how fckn good you have to be to back him up...) and Stephen Brunner on bas (also playing with Snoop and Erykah B):

Same Devotion

2009-08-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

Uncle Henk is the guy that introduced us to the sounds of GRP, Bernard Wright, Noel Pointer, Bobby Lyle and Pleasure, some of the heavy jazzfunk papi's of the 70's. We met him about 5 years ago and discovered his charismatic lyrical flow through a voice that reminds me of Andy Bey somehow...He operates under different alter-ego's, mostly working under the name Proto, his collective featuring Nelson&Djosa, Erik Ritfeld and Ntjamrosie. We did about 30 recordings with Henk over the years, here's a song we did a while ago, video by Unoximus Prime once again:

Slide the Inside

2009-08-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

An old one for us, a track we did about 2 years ago, with Kofi Anonymous on vocals, we shot the video ourselves with the help of Mr Unoximus Prime, a compilation of some of our previous gigs, plus some shots of the studio and Toko94. This track never got released, but we'll see what we do with it, check out the video:

Ode to Stevie Wonder

2009-08-06T11:13:00.001-07:00

Not liking Stevie is the same as not liking soul. Or music, for all I care. We did a mix of some of Stevie's highlights, with some unreleased stuff plus tracks he produced and wrote for other people like the Pointer Sisters and Minnie Ripperton. Apparently, the man is working on his new album entitled "The Gospel Inspired By Lula", let's hope it's not gonna take the usual decade he takes per album since the eighties...

http://www.mixtapemixtape.com.p4.hostingprod.com/mixes/odetostevie.mp3

Shared via AddThis

Boogie Ball memories...

2009-08-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

The waiting for the next North Sea Jazz Festival is killing us, but at least this last edition, we did the official North Sea Jazz Afterparty, and it was fckn nice if I may say so myself, thanks to Om'Mas Keith, Roy Hargrove, Marcus Miller and Esperanza Spalding for doing what they normally don't (DJ-ing, that is), check out the pics: http://your09.nl/gallery/58

Boogie Ball 10 & 11 juli 2009 in YOUR SPACE Rotterdam from Jaap & Frank on Vimeo.

Space Funk

2009-08-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

The Hartley family, one of music's best kept secrets, is ready to step out: Check out Steve's first vid from his upcoming debut album, a track called Space Funk. A little story I'd like to share with you all: The term Space Funk first came to our minds after we had just made the kick-off track for our new album (details soon). We like to do our vocals from an improv, and come up with the words afterwards (we will be getting into the recording inside-outs for our new album soon on this page). Djosa hit the mic and came up with the first verse, starting with Children of the Space Funk. As much as we all hate the industry's categorization of music into uncomfortable categories, we liked the concept of space funk, as this emcompasses two very important elements of our sound. But who could really bring this nasty funk to the people, we are very picky about our vocalists. So after many hours of surfing hundreds of horrible and overloaded myspace pages, we stumbled upon a dude called Steve Hartley. Turned out he used the same terminology, the first track in his player starts of with a reverby voice announcing you with a scream of mental and musical liberation: "Free your mind, through the sounds of space funk". THEN we really started to make the S-Funk we had been longing for, and it sounds something like......Soon, in the mean while, check out our man on youtube:

a blast from a while ago...

2009-08-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

Our debut album as producers, writers and musicians was released a while ago, the debut album for Ntjamrosie, check our Bulu sister out on myspace.com/ntjamrosie. Atouba is a journey through the years we spent together as a collective, starting out with GMB, Dutch mc/producer and Ntjamrosie on vocals. In these past 5 years we've witnessed the growth of one of Holland/Cameroon's most original and challenging vocalists, as the album shows. Going from our earlier 2005 productions (Bia Yon) all the way up to little gems like Atat and Ensisim, co-written and performed by Erik Ritfeld, a true genius on the keys, who has worked with the likes of Lee Perry, Michael Franti and Eek-A-Mouse. Stylistically, Ntjamrosie has now ventured into the lost sounds of Patrice Rushen and George Duke from an Afrocentric perspective, since she now stepped up her game on the piano. Can't wait for her to record that stuff and show the globe some unheard sounds from her mind. Atouba is available pretty much everywhere on the net, i-tunes and local record stores through Appletree Records.

all things Nelson&Djosa online

2009-08-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody,

the digital era is growing on our analog mind faster than your neurons can fire your brain, so here we are: Nelson&Djosa online! All things related Nelson&Djosa and some more stuff we want you to experience, join us for the daily (probably weekly) scoops,

pce and sunlight

N