GroundUP Music, formed in 2011, has expanded from independent record label (home to albums from David Crosby, Charlie Hunter, Becca Stevens, Cory Henry, Banda Magda, and many more) to live event curation, launching the annual GroundUP Music Festival in 2017 in Miami Beach, Florida. Their second album, What Heat, a collaboration with the Metropole Orkest under the baton of Jules Buckley, was released in fall of 2018 and nominated for “Best World Music Album” in the 2020 Grammy Awards. Bokanté spent 2017 touring around the world in support of their debut album, Strange Circles.
Blending influence from blues, rock, Caribbean, and West African styles, the group includes an all-star cast of musicians from 5 different continents. As producer, primary composer and bandleader for the group over the last fifteen years, he has earned three Grammy awards and played over 1500 concerts on six continents. As an instrumentalist and producer, he has worked with a diverse range of artists in pop (Laura Mvula, Lalah Hathaway, Joe Walsh, Michael McDonald, Rufus Wainwright), folk (David Crosby, Chris Thile), gospel (Kirk Franklin, Walter Hawkins, Marvin Sapp, Israel Houghton, Myron Butler), jazz (Terence Blanchard, Esperanza Spalding, Joshua Redman, Wayne Krantz, Chris Potter), electronic (Squarepusher, Daedelus, Tokimonsta), and world music (Salif Keïta, Eliades Ochoa of the Buena Vista Social Club, Fatoumata Diawara, Bassekou Kouyate, Susana Baca, Kardeş Türküler, Väsen).Īs a sophomore in college, Michael formed the instrumental ensemble Snarky Puppy. Michael attended the University of North Texas' jazz studies program for 4 years, then moved to nearby Dallas for another 3 years, where he worked with some of the most influential figures in modern gospel, R&B, and soul music, and was mentored by legendary keyboardist Bernard Wright (Miles Davis, Chaka Khan) before moving to Brooklyn, New York, in 2009, where he spent 9 years, then relocated to his current home of Catalonia, Spain. He is the creator and bandleader of instrumental music ensemble Snarky Puppy and world music group Bokanté, founder of the record label and music curation source GroundUP Music, and artistic director of the GroundUP Music Festival. Michael League is a 4-time Grammy ® Award-winning, 5-time nominated producer and musician based out of Catalonia, Spain. Michael League Bass, Composer, Bandleader It was at this time that the group absorbed musicians like Robert “Sput” Searight (drums), Shaun Martin (keyboards), and Bobby Sparks (keyboards), and were heavily influenced by legendary keyboardist Bernard Wright (Miles Davis, Chaka Khan, Marcus Miller). Three years later, a serendipitous intersection with the Dallas gospel and R&B community in Dallas transformed the music into something funkier, more direct, and more visceral. The band was formed by bassist and primary composer Michael League in 2004, starting inconspicuously enough as a group of college friends at the University of North Texas’ Jazz Studies program. But more than the cultural diversity of the individual players, the defining characteristic of Snarky Puppy’s music is the joy of performing together in the perpetual push to grow creatively. Japan, Argentina, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Puerto Rico all have representation in the group’s membership. At its core, the band represents the convergence of both black and white American music culture with various accents from around the world. They each maintain busy schedules as sidemen (with such artists as Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and D’Angelo), producers (for Kirk Franklin, David Crosby, and Salif Keïta), and solo artists (many of whom are on the band’s indy label, GroundUP Music). Snarky Puppy is a collective of sorts with as many as 25 members in regular rotation. It’s probably best to take Nate Chinen of the New York Times’ advice, as stated in an online discussion about the group, to “take them for what they are, rather than judge them for what they’re not.” It’s not a fusion band, and it’s definitely not a jam band. But as the category names for all four of the band’s Grammy® awards would indicate (Best R&B Performance in 2014, Best Contemporary Instrumental Album in 2016, 2017, and 2021), Snarky Puppy isn’t exactly a jazz band. After a decade of relentless touring and recording in all but complete obscurity, the Texas-bred/New York-based quasi-collective suddenly found itself held up by the press and public as one of the major figures in the jazz world.
0 kommentar(er)
