Ahead of their dates at London’s Jazz Cafe next week, Cocoa Diaries, contributor Sam Bleazard talked to one of the founding members of Britain’s finest purveyors of funk for the last 25 years, The Brand New Heavies. As three lads from Drake Manor high school in Ealing (“quite arty” by all accounts), The Brand New Heavies got together to play music at some point in the mid 80s. Jam sessions and clubbing quickly followed, especially bank holiday ‘all dayers’, which, as drummer Jan Kincaid describes wistfully, “…£2 in your pocket and you could be dancing all day. Jan’s voice can be heard on some of the groups best loved songs such as “Got to Give” and came of age during arguably their most commercially successful record, Brother Sister, duetting with American singer N’dea Davenport. I start off by asking him how a drummer becomes a co-lead vocalist? “It was all a happy accident really. But actually at school I played piano first, did the grades…but like a lot of kids I got bored by classical tunes and having to learn things that I wasn’t listening to at the time. At age 10 I got into rock n roll, then Rhythm and Blues, Funk and Soul, and it just blew up from there. I learned how to write a good melody, then song writing got important to me, but also rhythm.”
The bond between Jan, bass player Andrew Levy and guitarist Simon Bartholomew is clearly a strong one: “We’ve never split up to this day, we’ve always worked together, even through life changing things like having kids”, he explains. And who could argue with their blueprint, they were key players in the acid jazz scene, during what many now look back on as a golden period for British funk and soul. The Brand New Heavies sound typified an artistic movement in the early 90s in London – but also breaking out in other cities such as Bristol – which nodded to the great soul, funk, jazz and R&B of a previous generation (specifically heroes stateside such as James Brown) but one which was very home-grown. The Young Disciples and Carleen Anderson, Jay Kay and Jamiroquai, Des’ree, Paul Weller’s re-invention, Galliano, Massive Attack, Omar…the list goes on and on. It’s perhaps no surprise that Jan is still playing live, still putting out records…but how hard has it been to stay vital and survive over the years? “We kept the band together, and for me it is a job, but we’re lucky and very blessed to do something we love. I also get to travel with this band, we’ve played in some amazing places (most recently in China and Japan). It’s been an up and down journey, you learn to have survival skills in the industry, because the way music is produced has changed such a lot.”
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