Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of this 1995 album from the jazz/R&B vocalist. This set includes a staggering 14 bonus remixes and exclusive interviews with Randy Crawford and Ralf Droesemeyer. This collection is a must for all acid jazz, jazz-funk, soul and dance fans everywhere!
More than the compilation series, more than the lovingly organised events, more than the radio shows: "Le Café Abstrait" is a philosophy of lifestyle: relaxed and culturally open-minded.
It was "Le Café Abstrait" and its mastermind, Raphaël Marionneau, who pioneered chill-out culture at Hamburg's internationally renown Mojo club in 1996: "Le Café Abstrait" reinvented nightclubbing in a new relaxing way. Once a month, stylish sofa installations and light projections transformed Mojo's dancefloor into a gigantic living room. There, up to 400 laid-back nightlife connoisseurs indulged in relaxation and Raphaël Marionneau's very special downtempo music selections. A new lifestyle was born: the couch culture…
The term "New York downtown jazz" is sometimes frowned upon by its practitioners, who tend to feel stylistically pigeonholed by the description and also linked to a certain club south of Canal Street, about which many feel ambivalent at best. There might be a number of reasons for these members of the New York creative music community to roll their eyes at yet another reference to "downtowners" (not the least of which being that many of them live in Brooklyn), but they must at least acknowledge that the downtown scene is usually described in positive terms – edgy, progressive, boundary-stretching, adventurous, non-idiomatic – in contrast to the Midtown scene surrounding Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln Center, which, while credited with keeping the flame of classic modern jazz alive in America, has also been accused of a certain stodgy, retro, parochial, and limited sensibility in today's current, all-encompassing world of jazz and creative improvisation.