An essential drummer and producer, Nate Smith blurs the lines of jazz, funk, R&B, and hip-hop with a groove that is both precise and technical. His album LIVE-ACTION has been a resounding success, earning him two GRAMMY Award nominations (Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Arrangement, Instruments & Vocals for the track with säje). With LIVE-ACTION Deluxe, Nate Smith extends this live experience, staying true to his organic approach while once again surrounding himself with leading figures in contemporary jazz, such as Braxton Cook.
Nate Smith conceived his album LIVE-ACTION as a producer-led project, in the vein of Quincy Jones.
He explains: "It was a way to activate all these relationships I've built over the last five or six years, especially since the pandemic, many of them through social media."
The album brings together an impressive array of musicians: Josh Johnson and Marquis Hill, rapper JSWISS, guitarists Charlie Hunter and Lionel Loueke, bassists Michael League, Ben Williams, and CARRTOONS, keyboardists DJ Harrison and Kiefer, the group Säje, singer Jermaine Holmes, and Lalah Hathaway, who performs a bold cover of The Pointer Sisters' "Automatic" (1984), entirely reharmonized and reinterpreted with Nate Smith.
Even though the album is deeply collaborative, Nate Smith ensures its unity through a deliberate rigor: "I wanted the record to sound like it was recorded on a cassette in my room. I deliberately limited my options: I used analog equipment, the same instruments throughout the project. I only did two or three takes for each element, no copy-pasting or anything like that. All instruments were played live, nothing is programmed or sequenced."
Today, with the release of LIVE-ACTION Deluxe, Nate Smith extends this adventure, offering new collaborations and unreleased performances, while celebrating the success of the original album, already nominated in two categories at the GRAMMY Awards (Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Arrangement, Instruments & Vocals for the track with säje).
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