Herbie Hancock Lite me up

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.

Turn up the volume! While the first “Fahrt ins Blaue” (journey into the blue/unknown) album from ACT in 2016 offered classy songs for chilling, a great place just to hang out and relax, the new album “FiB II - groovin' in the spirit of jazz” leads us straight out onto the dance floor. From the moment it opens up, with funky jazz, gritty blues and bucketloads of soul, this compilation sets the tone for a night of partying.

This straight-ahead trio date led by drummer Brian Melvin is most notable for being electric bassist Jaco Pastorius' final recording, cut just a year before his premature death. With Melvin and pianist Jon Davis (whose style is most influenced by McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock), Pastorius was free to be very active in accompanying the piano solos, and he gets to stretch out on nearly every tune. Those listeners who stereotype Pastorius as a fusion-rock bassist will be surprised by the song titles, which include "Days of Wine and Roses," "So What," "If You Could See Me Now," "Tokyo Blues," and "Village Blues." The recording is consistently stimulating and serves as a strong final musical chapter for the great Jaco Pastorius.