SongVault Artist Profile

Manteca Beat Philosophy:
I have been playing music in Austin for a long time. Lots of bands, styles, venues, you name it. For me music is just music. Like Duke Ellington said (I paraphrase): "There's two kinds of music: good and bad." Part of why I stay in Austin is the creative cross-pollination among musicians. It may be a tough town to make a living as a musician, but it's a great place to work on music.
But like any other city, music and music audiences break down into categories, niches, preferences, and commercial demographics. I also lead a jazz band, but to me jazz is an umbrella term, which includes so much. But many people think of jazz as cerebral listening music, and many clubs don't book jazz acts because they think jazz won't appeal to their target audience.
So I formed Manteca Beat to focus on a particular niche, the classic R&B, blues and souljazz sound that roughly spanned the 1940s-60s. As I indicated above, it's kind of arbitrary to block music off into these niches, but sometimes it is necessary.
My friends know me as a saxophone player with a bit of a wild hair; I play many styles and I am likely to go off in many musical directions, but I always try to play from the heart.
I have played in many swing bands, blues bands, Motown-soul bands, world music, ska/reggae, latin jazz... the list spirals out into the cosmos. I draw on all my musical experiences for the repertoire and feel in Manteca Beat's music, but the unifying theme is that the music has soul, has a little grease.
I want people to come in from whatever they were doing and wherever they are at, and feel at home, let the music warm you and tickle you. Maybe you will recognize some of the songs, maybe the music will stir old memories. Maybe it will inspire some new ones. Maybe you will listen, maybe you will dance. Let's get together and see what may be.
pk