#funktioneers

in a couple of weeks' time i'm heading to europe for 2 weeks - it's a quick trip and going to be jam packed with a lot of activity :) just how i like it! the exclusive shows will be at the silda jazz festival in haugesund, norway. i've played the fest a couple of times, and was at the same venue, cafe moody, a couple of months ago. it's a really intimate and great vibe little spot run by a great crew, and i'm really looking forward to getting back there for a three night run august 13-15: 13th: featuring soweto kinch / 14th: featuring soweto kinch + special guest / 15th: featuring vanessa freeman. most of you will know vanessa's been mashing up a lot of shows with me over the past year - one of the UK's illest on the microphone, it's going to be a blast to get it together again. soweto is one of my favorite sax players anywhere - and a really unique MC as well. we havent played a lot together - a week in brasil collaborating with drumagick, and an improv show in warsaw a while back doing a silent film soundtrack freesoul style. definitely looking forward to whatever madness our norway shows bring ;) as well as that, there's a couple of promo radio show events in switzerland - august 20 in basel and 21 in zurich, and some studio planned with phil asher (more restless soul runnings!), mixing down tracks for the funktioneers album featuring baby sol and shea soul, recording with queen b aka bembe segue, and one day of recording in italy with drummer tommaso cappellato. i met tommaso on the last europe tour when i played elefante rosso in venice. he's very much in the NY-jazz vibe of playing and we had a whole lot of fun on that gig. as a result of that meeting, we've decided to hit studio for a day while i'm over and record a deep free-jazz-meets-the-mashi-beats album. one of his mentors in NYC was mr harry whitaker so maybe we'll be tipping the hat a lil to black rennaisance ;) it's going to be a crazy couple of weeks away - looking forward to seeing my europe friends and fam. sorry there aren't more shows this trip, but soon come with the next one! between now and then, between some beach action, there's remixes for jody watley and cherie mathieson to get done and a couple other secret missions.... ;) news as it happens...

the europe tour's been crazy fun so far - really full on schedule with only a couple of days off over the whole month, it's great to be able to take the music to so many different places :) i mentioned the sofia and vienna shows in another blog - they were both mad fun and it was great to hit with tawiah on mic again. some more pics from the sofia show here. after that it was straight into studio with shea soul and baby sol recording vocals for the funktioneers new album. i've been mentoring/producing the band through the process and brought bembe segue in to songwrite for some of the material which has been vocalled by shea and baby. the album's coming together nice. the next day it was on the plane straight to cannes for the onedreamrush after party hosted by 42below at the cha cha club. it was a complete paparazzi, fashion and celebrity event with crazy (CRAZY - check the pics. lolol) characters on the dancefloor, asia argenta holding court and sean lennon performing after my set with vanessa freeman on mic. we smacked the party up properly and had the place jumping - it was great to showcase the sounds to a whole new audience, many of whom had no idea what they were about to experience ;) cannes is amazing - even without the film festival... private planes, luxury launches... mental. yes, that IS a dude in the last photo - there was some hipster-meets-louis-XIV crew there, i'm guessing sean's crew... but hey, they got down and partied! we left the party early morning and an hour later i was on the first of four planes to get to bergen, norway where it was straight into the studio with the funktioneers for a couple of days to record final touches to their album. the bergen studio is something else - fully kitted with top quality gear and looking straight out at the ocean - you can literally see the ocean swell right in front of you as you sit at the main studio desk... a lot of flying, a lot of hours working, and not so much sleeping, but hey, that's a vibe in itself :) day 3 in norway i headed down the coast to haugesund and met up with vanessa freeman again to hit a show at cafe moody. moody is a tiny little venue which i played last year at the sildajazz festival. i loved getting back there - it's a welcoming spot and crew. i setup a ustream.tv channel to stream the gig, but unfortunately the mic gain was set waaay too high so anyone who tuned in got picture but also maddd distorted sound. sorry about that one! will definitely be streaming more shows and studio when possible and will keep a better eye/ear on that audio gain control ;) we managed a couple of hours sleep after the show, vanessa headed back to london and i was back on the planes crossing scandinavia to helsinki for my first night off in a minute. treated myself to a decent hotel room, some room service dinner and headed out to the pre-party for next weekend's funky elephant festival where i'm playing on saturday. the pre-party was a good vibe for sure and totally on the random, i'm at the bar getting a drink and someone says "are you mark ?" - turns out it was the whole nova lima band, who i'd never met before but played some keys on their latest album on a cut called 'yo voy'. they happened to be playing in helsinki the next day and were hanging out at the same party that night. small world! so now i'm in oulu in northern finland - far enough north that it never gets dark. going to be a pretty unique week just on that tip alone! over the next 5 days i'm giving workshop masterclasses at oulu university of applied science for their pop and jazz course students. loosely titled '21st century beats', i'll be working with the students each day sharing my ideas and methods about music production and performance, and culminating in a show together at the end of the week at local club 45 special. it's an exciting project - i've done workshops before but never a such an intensive period - it'll be interesting to see what we come up with by friday :) more news soon... after this week in oulu the weekend shows are the funky elephant festival in helsinki with bembe segue, vanessa freeman, jason yarde and yoann julliard joining me, and then the exclusive london show at east village on sunday 31st with vanessa freeman on mic, surprise guests and bugz in the attic on the decks. DON'T MISS IT!