Shakatak are an
English jazz-funk band, founded in
1980
Shakatak scored a number of chart entries, including two Top 10 hits in the
UK Singles Chart, "
Night Birds" (
1982) and "
Down on the Street" (
1984), plus a further 12 entries in the
Guinness Book of
British Hit Singles. The group is still active and popular throughout the world, particularly in
Japan and the
Far East, and generally produce a new
album every two years on
JVC Records.
From their first release in
August 1980, (the
Bill Sharpe composition "
Steppin'" on the
Polydor record label), and their first
album,
Drivin' Hard, the band's
singles and albums have entered the charts regularly.
It was the release of "
Easier Said Than Done" that gave the band the radio exposure needed for their first top-twenty hit. This record introduced their instrumental-unison vocal sound to a much wider audience, and the track stayed in the UK Singles Chart for seventeen weeks. The follow-up, "Night Birds", was their first single to reach the top ten, and the album of the same name gave Shakatak their first gold album, entering at number four and remaining in the charts for twenty-eight weeks. By now a major international act, the success of the release gave them the number-one jazz album slot in Japan, and attracted interest across
Europe and
South America. "Night Birds" was used in the feature film,
Away We Go, directed by
Sam Mendes, and was used as the demonstration song on many Casio piano keyboards such as the Casio CT-460.
Two more albums – Invitations and
Out of This World – were recorded in 1982 and
1983, resulting in several more chart hits, and paving the way for the next major breakthrough in the band's career. With a subtle change in musical direction, yet still retaining the band's identity,
Jill Saward (formerly of
Fusion Orchestra,
Brandy and
Citizen Gang) became their sole lead singer to make Shakatak's fifth album, Down on the Street. The resulting single releases "Down on the Street" and "
Watching You" and "
Don't Blame It On
Love" had great success, and brought them attention in new parts of the world.
The following year saw the release of the group's first live album, which was recorded in both
Tokyo and
London.
In
1988, Shakatak were commissioned to write the official song for the 1988
Kenwood Cup yacht race entitled
Racing With
The Wind which was used in
Japanese Kenwood advertisements and was released on an album called Da Makani exclusively released in Japan.
However, following this success the band felt it was time that they re-directed their efforts back to singles and an album for release to the rest of the world. The result was
Something Special, closely followed by the night club and chart hit "Mr
Manic &
Sister Cool" from their next LP, Manic and Cool
.
In the 1990s, the band had success in the US when they had two albums that went to No 1 in the contemporary jazz charts and were also awarded the Japanese
Grammy for best international instrumental album six years running.
Shakatak continue to appear regularly throughout the world with recent festival performances at Jakjazz, the
Jakarta International Jazz Festival,
Bangkok,
Hua Hin and the Bratislava
Jazz Day. They make annual appearances at the
Billboard Clubs in Japan, and the
Pizza Express Jazz
Room in London, plus numerous other concert and club performances.
The band celebrated their thirtieth anniversary year in
2010.
Bassist
George Anderson released his second solo album,
Expressions, on
3 September 2012 through
Secret Records. Coming three years after his first album
Positivity, this album again had
Anderson writing, arranging and producing all of the tracks.
Keyboardist Bill Sharpe worked with
American jazz pianist
Don Grusin on a joint project called
Geography released in
2007.
Sharpe's second collaboration with Grusin,
Trans Atlantica, was released on 3 September 2012. It was also issued through Secret Records, and included Geography as a special 2-CD package.
- published: 27 Mar 2016
- views: 1