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Funkengruven - Kevin Coelho Debut Album
Recorded at Monaco’s B3-customized Columbus Sound Studio in Ohio, with Monaco sidemen guitarist Derek DiCenzo and drummer Reggie Jackson, “Funkengruven” features Coelho’s ingeniously funky arrangements of Otis Redding’s evergreen “Dock of the Bay” and Herbie Hancock’s soul-jazz smash “Cantaloupe Island.”Kevin Coelho debut recording, “Funkengruven – The Joy of Driving a B3,” was produced by B3 master Tony Monaco, whose Chicken Coup Records imprint is released in July 2012 “Funkengruven,” 2012, via Summit Records.
The album’s title track is an original by Coelho, as is “McJimmy” – the young organist’s homage to the uplifting gospel sound of B3 idol Jimmy McGriff. Along with versions of “Play It Back” by veteran Hammond virtuoso Dr. Lonnie Smith, the Miles Davis bop classic “Donna Lee” and the standard “What’s New,” the disc includes two pieces by one of Coelho’s prime teachers, trumpeter-composer and theoretician Randy Masters.
Coelho describes his “Funkengruven” title tune as “a riff blues over a set of non-standard changes, something that’s funky and grooving but also swings. Those are tricky things to reconcile, funk and swing, not a lot of players can do it. But Reggie and Derek can do anything. They really have the dynamics of the organ trio down from playing so long with Tony.”
Jackson is “a human metronome, his time beyond solid,” Coelho says. “He’s intense, too. Reggie might make the people upfront deaf, but he’ll take the music to the highest possible energy level. He and Tony go places with the music where I rarely hear other musicians go. And Derek is a character. The first time I saw him play, he was wearing night-vision goggles all through the gig. He has his own sound, too – the unexpected is his thing. Even when he does something wrong, it’s right.”
As for his own role, Coelho says: “I’m still developing my own sound, of course. I’m concentrating on trying to re-create in my own way the soul and energy of those old records I love – and that I see Tony Monaco play with now. It’s all about soul and energy.”
Funkengruven – The Joy of Driving a B3
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“Funkengruven”
(Kevin Coelho)
“Cantaloupe Island”
(Herbie Hancock)
“Take a Stand”
(Randy Masters)
“Chagalu”
(Randy Masters)
“Dock of the Bay”
(Otis Redding & Steve Cropper)
“McJimmy”
(Kevin Coelho)
“Donna Lee”
(Miles Davis)
"Tangerine"
(Victor Schertzinger)
“Play It Back”
(Dr. Lonnie Smith)
“What’s New”
(Bob Haggart)
Produced by Tony Monaco
for Chicken Coup Records
Kevin Coelho, Hammond B3
Derek DiCenzo, guitar
Reggie Jackson, drums