Six Degrees away from Mark - Page 2

"I thought it was a little slower when I arrived back. Part of my summer plan was to get things happening - that was realised through producing the Manifesto Summer Jazz Festival and the Celebrating Miles and Monk concerts at the maidment theatre. I'm really keen to see some younger jazz groups start their own thing happening and breaking out from the mould of the few venues that are thought of as jazz venues."

Your web site is jazz.co.nz so how's that going at the moment?

"We're getting a lot of hits - over 25,000 in the past six months - but it's a hard job to maintain the site. especially with my own performing and recording commitments, the website is always secondary. Anyone want to lend a helping hand?"

What projects are you currently working on?

"My new album is titled Six Degrees and will be released on Kog Transmissions/Univeral in early July with a nationwide launch tour in the same month. The album is a major departure from my past albums with a huge influence from my time and experiences in London last year. Think breakbeat, Latin, house, drum'n'bass, hip-hop and jazz all fused together in a pretty unprecedented way! As well as playing all keyboards, I've done the drum programming as well. It's an exciting project and I think it's going to be well received in New Zealand as well in the UK and Japan. On board co-producing are Sub Mariner and Manuel Bundy (both of whom were involved with Che Fu's debut) and Joost Langeveld (with whom I did the JMJ project track on Kog's compilation Algorhythm .")

So why's the album called Six Degrees then?

"The idea came up through two things. Firstly last year, all the producers, DJs and musicians I got to work with all came about through someone knowing someone who knew someone, and so on... the basic six degrees of separation in action. Also, the styles of dance music fused into the album are really diverse and varied but in reality, they're so close to each other, only a 'degree' away from each other."

And... has the EP you did with I.G. Culture been released yet?

"Not yet! I.G. is setting up his new label, Mainsqueeze Records, and the EP should be out by mid year."

Last I heard, there was no TV in your place...so...I don't know whether you would have seen a documentary hosted by George Martin. But, it had him travelling to various places such as the Caribbean,