Down To The Bone: The Main Ingredients, CD

One of the UK’s best jazz-funk groove bands, and one of the country’s most successful jazz exports (their album “Manhattan To Staten” reached No 2 on the Billboard US Jazz Albums chart). Led by Stuart Wade, long-time produc-er/writer behind the band, the line-up includes vocalist Imaani, forrmerly of Incognito.

Since the mid-Nineties Stuart Wade and his band Down To The Bone - their name inspired by a club night To The Bone run at that time by DJs Bob Jones and Simon Dunmore of Defected - have been injecting some fresh and funky grooves into the UK and US jazz groove scene. Their past triumphs have in-cluded a No 2 Billboard Jazz Album (From Manhattan To Staten) and becom-ing the best-selling Independent Jazz Artist of 1999 in the US.

The new studio album - their ninth - opens with a seven-minute masterpiece “Uptown Hustle”. Other highlights include “Together We Stand” and “Watch Me Fly”, featuring the glorious vocals of Imaani. Julian Crampton, also a former Incognito band member, keeps things moving nicely on bass.