Our neighbours up north will be having their 4th jazz festival starting from the 15th of December till the 17th with a line-up that'll make you say, Man, I want to be there! .
Names such as YellowJackets, Hiromi, Tower of Power, Lewis Pragasam and AsiaBeat, Jazz Kamikaze, Dave Grusin and many others will be gracing this year's festival that will end with a World Star Jazz Jam session on the final night led by Jack Lee and Lewis Pragasam.

YellowJackets, Although sometimes grouped with Spyro Gyra, the Yellowjackets are actually one of the most creative regular groups in the rhythm jazz genre. Founded in 1981 as an R B-oriented band that starred guitarist Robben Ford, the group took a giant step forward when, after Ford's departure, altoist Marc Russo took his place. With original members Russell Ferrante on keyboards and electric bassist Jimmy Haslip, in addition to drummer William Kennedy, the band found its own R B-ish sound, sometimes playing original compositions that sounded like Joe Zawinul at his most melodic.

Starting out on Warner Brothers in the early '80s, the Yellowjackets moved to MCA/GRP in 1986, where they released a string of well-received albums. In the '90s, Russo chose to go out on his own, and his replacement, Bob Mintzer (on tenor and bass clarinet), added more jazz credibility to the group's music. They moved back to Warner Brothers in 1995 for several albums before moving the Heads Up label for the live two-CD set Mint Jam in 2002.

2003 saw the release of their first studio album in five years, Time Squared.
Hiromi Uehara, Pianist and composer Hiromi Uehara was born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1979. At the age of six she started playing piano.

Within a year, she was a student of the Yamaha School of Music, whose progressive approach to musical training allowed the young student to shape her technical skills, writing and performing. After relocating to the United States in 1999, she continued her studies at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, where she received a full scholarship.
It was there that Hiromi developed her varied musical taste, encompassing everyone from J.

S. Bach to Sly the Family Stone. While at Berklee, she also had the opportunity to play with jazz piano legends Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, and her mentor, Ahmad Jamal.

In 2003, Hiromi recorded her first disc, Another Mind, on the Telarc label, produced by Jamal. Brain was released a year later, followed by the pianist's third trio album for Telarc, Spiral, in 2006.
Dave Grusin, University of Colorado graduate David Grusin was still in his early 20s when he began building his reputation as one of the best performer/composer/arrangers in the field of progressive jazz and instrumental pop.

Grusin provided piano accompaniment for Andy Williams when the latter was just starting out in the late 1950s; he remained with Williams on and off for over a decade, serving as orchestra leader for TV's The Andy Williams Show from 1963 to 1966. He also prepared arrangements for such artists as Benny Goodman, Quincy Jones and Paul Simon.
In partnership with Larry Rosen, Grusin established his own recording label in 1983; that same year, he won the first of his five Grammy Awards and still found time to compose main theme and background music for TV's St Elsewhere.

His motion-picture work has included scores for five Sydney Pollack Films. David Grusin won an Oscar for his score for The Milagro Beanfield War (198, and has earned nominations for Heaven Can Wait (197, The Champ (1979), My Bodyguard (1980), Tootsie (1981), The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and The Firm (1993).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide.
Lee Mack Ritenour, 1 November 1952, Los Angeles, California, USA. The prolific Ritenour has established himself as one of the world's leading jazz fusion guitarists with a series of accessible albums over the past two decades.

Known as Captain Fingers , Ritenour became a sought-after session player in the mid-70s and, like Larry Carlton (both regularly play a Gibson 335), has developed his own solo career. Although heavily influenced in his early days by the relaxed styles of Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass and Barney Kessel, he now has his own distinctive sound and fluid style. His list of session work is awesome, but some of his notable performances were with Herbie Hancock, Steely Dan and Stanley Clarke.

Since the mid-80s Ritenour has been strongly influenced by Brazilian music. He joined GRP Records around this time, having worked with stablemate Don Grusin in the band Friendship. He recorded the magnificent Harlequin with GRP co-owner Dave Grusin in 1985.

In the early 90s Ritenour teamed up with Bob James, Harvey Mason and bass player Nathan East under the name of Fourplay, who have released a number of soul/jazz/funk fusion albums for Warner Brothers Records. In 1993 Ritenour topped the Billboard jazz chart with his accomplished tribute to Wes Montgomery, Wes Bound, and followed it in 1995 with an excellent joint album with Carlton. In 1997, Ritenour founded his own I.

E. Music label. In 2001 he released a tribute to Bob Marley, placing reggae classics into a soft fusion setting.

Salena Jones is blessed with a rich voice of great resonance and beauty. Her gift of rendering sincere interpretations of stylish songs is unparalleled, whether they be mystical and sensuous ballads or more swinging renditions of up tempo songs. Through the power of her distinctive voice she has the ability to let you the listener increase your emotional repertoire.

It is the usual custom to simplistically label singers but it is difficult to easily categorise Salena Jones because she crosses so many musical borders - be they called jazz, blues, commercial pop, swing, latin, easy listening and so on. Salena's remarkable versatility enables her to sing virtually any kind of song.
Salena is frequently and favourably likened to the greats of yester-year including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Peggy Lee, and she is acknowledged as one of the great singers performing in the world today
However, Salena was keen to come to London to developher career and she arrived in 1966: but only after escaping the clutches of the Spanish club owner who wanted Salena to contractually sign her life away, and after inadvertently living (and, she emphasises, innocently) in a brothel in Calais, whilst waiting for her permit to enter Britain!

Salena has made her home in England ever since. One of her early London dates was at Ronnie Scott's where her initial booking was extended to seven consecutive weeks: still believed to be the record for this world famous jazz club. Salena has appeared at most leading concert halls and venues throughout Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Holland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Turkey, Austria and Bulgaria.

She has also made numerous television and radio broadcasts in Britain, and throughout Europe, often supported by the BBC Big Band. Further afield, Salena has performed in Australia, Africa, South America, China, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and Japan. Since her first visit to Japan in 1978 she has returned at least annually, appearing in concert halls, on television, radio and regularly at the Blue Note Jazz Clubs in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka.