So the other day when I was looking for YouTube videos of Eddie Harris, I came across the jazz trio Hammond Grooves from Brazil. Since I live in a town that has a large, and very important to the community, Brazilian population the band being from Brazil caught my attention. And that it was an organ trio also raised my curiosity! Since the band is from Brazil the information on online at the usual locations was sparse. I did find the band on Twitter and then found there website and their Facebook page. The only problem was that all the information was in Portuguese!! Now I usually use the Opera browser which does not offer translation of pages, so I tried to translate some of the information on Babel fish and got some basics. i.e. the leader of the band is Daniel Latorre ao (the) Hammond B-3, Wagner Vasconcelos: Bateria (drums) and Daniel Daibem:guitarra (guitar).
Well today I went on Google Chrome and low and behold they translated the page!! So I found out just a little more about the band…. The group has been around since 2004 and brings to the stage the legendary “HAMMOND ORGAN B-3” and a Box “LESLIE”, where organist Latorre provides the bass lines with his feet. The trio blends jazz, funk, boogaloo (embryonic funk rhythm) with Brazilian rhythms (maracatú, samba, ballad, frevo, etc.), creating themes and unpublished copyright. Their performances include songs, honoring the masters like Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Jack McDuff, Reuben Wilson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Grant Green, Big John Patton, Earl Grant, George Benson, Walter Wanderley, and others. Check them out on Twitter, Facebook, , or their website – HammondGroves.com Also there are a couple of other videos on Youtube! Here is Hammond Grooves with a great performance of Eddie Harris’ “Cold Duck Time”