Artists
Us3
The jazz/hip-hop fusion collective Us3 scored a major hit in 1994 with Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia), a song that displayed the group's fondness for sampling classic recordings on the Blue Note label (in this case, Herbie Hancock's Cantaloupe Island). The group was founded in London in 1991 when concert promoter and jazz writer Geoff Wilkinson met Mel Simpson, who was writing music for television shows and ad jingles and had once played keyboards with John Mayall.
Venger Collective
Venger Collective has appeared in 2006 in Moscow. It consists of musicians who have been grown up on acid jazz, funk, soul and house music. The band was started by Alexander Lygin and Vladislav Vengerovsky, two guitar players, who dreamed to make up modern soul-funk sound.
Vibraphonic
Vibraphonic was formed in 1990 when a track was commissioned by Acid Jazz Records. I See You was released on a compilation called Totally Wired 6 in June 1990.
Walter Beasley
A popular saxophonist and singer with a mellow, R&B-influenced style, Walter Beasley has led a successful contemporary and smooth jazz career.
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter was one of jazz's leading figures in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as both a composer and saxophonist.
Weather Report
Weather Report started out as a jazz equivalent of what the rock world in 1970 was calling a “supergroup." But unlike most of the rock supergroups, this one not only kept going for a good 15 years, it more than lived up to its billing, practically defining the state of the jazz-rock art throughout almost all of its run.
Xploding Plastix
Xploding Plastix is a Norwegian two-man band playing electrofunk/big beat music with elements of jazz. Jens Petter Nilsen and Hallvard Wennersberg Hagen (formerly in Norwegian black metal band Kvist) formed the group in early 1999, and submitted their first demotape in 2000.
Yonderboi
Budapest-based Yonderboi, born László Fogarasi Jr. in Kaposvár, Hungary, is an equally modest and self-assured figure in the world of downtempo electronica.