Artists
Cunnie Williams
Cunnie Williams was born in 1963 in Los Angeles. When he was young, he played basketball, but he turned to music, when he lived in Hannover, Germany.
Dave Weckl
Dave Weckl is one of fusion's most acclaimed drummers, making his name during a six-year-stint with Chick Corea. Weckl was born in St. Louis and grew up listening to soul and jazz; he received his first drum set at age eight and developed his playing by listening to drummers like Buddy Rich, as well as R&B grooves.
David Sanborn
David Sanborn is among the most commercially successful saxophonists to emerge from the 1970s. Though a self-professed jazz musician, he has consistently subverted and transcended genres.
De-Phazz
De-Phazz was founded by Pit Baumgartner as an "open-band-concept" in 1997. The band was formed by the musicians who participated in the Detunized Gravity album: Karl Frierson, Barbara Lahr and Otto Engelhard.
Deee-Lite
With the massive popularity of their hit single Groove Is in the Heart, Deee-Lite brought the colorful sights and sounds of New York's club culture into the mainstream. Formed in 1986, the trio was led by vocalist Lady Miss Kier (born Kieren Kirby in Youngstown, Ohio) and fleshed out by a pair of DJs, Super DJ Dmitry (a classically-trained guitarist and Russian emigre born Dmitry Brill) and Jungle DJ Towa Towa (born Doug Wa-Chung in Tokyo, Japan).
Diana Krall
Singer/pianist Diana Krall got her musical education when she was growing up in Nanaimo, British Columbia, from the classical piano lessons she began at age four and in her high school jazz band, but mostly from her father, a stride piano player with an extensive record collection.
Digable Planets
Though they were not the first to synthesize jazz and hip-hop, Digable Planets epitomized the laid-back charm of jazz hipsters better than any group before or since. The trio's 1993 debut album, Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space), was a mellow ride packed with samples from Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, and Curtis Mayfield, and the single Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) became a Top 20 pop hit.
Dimitri from Paris
A pioneer of French dance music in the '90s and 2000s who continued a prolific release and touring schedule years later, Dimitri from Paris takes inspiration from the Continental jet-setting faux-jazz of the 1950s and early '60s, as well as disco and his long years of experience as a house DJ.