Jamiroquai

Jamiroquai are a British acid jazz band formed in 1992. Fronted by lead singer Jay Kay, Jamiroquai were initially the most prominent component in the early-1990s London-based acid jazz movement, alongside groups such as Incognito, the James Taylor Quartet, and the Brand New Heavies. Subsequent albums have explored other musical directions such as pop, rock and electronica. Their best known track is "Virtual Insanity", which won four awards at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. Jamiroquai have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1998.

History
The band name is a mix of "jam session" and "iroquai", based on the Iroquois, a Native American tribe. The original band was Jay Kay (vocals), Toby Smith (keyboard), Stuart Zender (bass), Nick Van Gelder (drums), Wallis Buchanan (didgeridoo) and Alec Moran (pipeau). These are the founding members of Jamiroquai and were involved in the writing and production of the first album. The lineup of the band has changed several times, and the longest serving and now core members of the band are lead singer and songwriter Jason "Jay" Kay, percussionist Sola Akingbola (since 1994), and drummer Derrick McKenzie (since 1994). Kay was the impetus behind the formation of Jamiroquai, deciding to form the band after an unsuccessful audition to become the singer of the Brand New Heavies. Although he has said that he has attempted to have Jamiroquai treated as a band, Kay has always been at the forefront..



1992–2006: Sony Music
Jamiroquai's first single, "When You Gonna Learn", was released in 1992 on the Acid Jazz label. Following its success, Kay signed an eight-album record deal with Sony Music Entertainment. The first Sony album, Emergency on Planet Earth was released in 1993. It was followed in 1994 by The Return of the Space Cowboy. The single "Space Cowboy" gained notice on the charts and in club rotation.

While Jamiroquai was growing in popularity in the UK, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, they remained relatively unknown to U.S and other international audiences. The band's American breakthrough came with the third album, Travelling Without Moving in 1996, which yielded two big hits, "Virtual Insanity" and "Cosmic Girl". The success of "Virtual Insanity" was due in part to its Jonathan Glazer-directed video, which featured Kay's dance moves and some physics-defying images. At the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, the creative music video for "Virtual Insanity" won four awards; Best Video, Best Special Effects, Best Cinematography, and Breakthrough Video, and the band performed the song at the ceremony.

In 1998, Jamiroquai released "Deeper Underground", the first single from their fourth studio album, Synkronized, which also appeared in the soundtrack for the 1998 movie Godzilla. The acid jazz flavours and ethnic influences of the first three albums continued with the release of Synkronized, and Jay Kay's interest in funk and disco music were shifting the band's directions towards such. By their fifth album, A Funk Odyssey (2001), they had evolved so drastically, that some critics and listeners would remark they lost the 'Jamiroquai sound'. With the departure of more and more original band members, including Wallis Buchanan and his didgeridoo, Jamiroquai had become a very different band than that of 1992. In spite of the changes, the fifth album's first single, "Little L", reached #1 in many charts worldwide becoming their best dance hit.

In 2003, Jamiroquai compiled and mixed a DJ mix album for the Late Night Tales series for Azuli Records. The track selection shows some of the band's funk, soul and disco influences, including tracks from The Pointer Sisters, The Commodores, Johnny "Hammond" Smith and Johnny "Guitar" Watson.

Their sixth album, titled Dynamite was released on 20 June 2005. It reached #3 on the UK charts. The first single, "Feels Just Like It Should" was released early in June, the second, "Seven Days in Sunny June" released on 15 August 2005, followed by the third, "(Don't) Give Hate A Chance" on 7 November 2005.

Jamiroquai released a greatest hits collection, High Times: Singles 1992-2006 in November 2006. The release of this album marked the end of Kay’s eight-album contract with Sony. The album reached the number 1 spot in the UK album chart after its first week of release. The album featured two new tracks, "Runaway" and "Radio". On 18 September 2006, "Runaway" was given its first play by UK radio stations. It was released as a single on 30 October 2006. Kay remarked that compilation was released purely out of contractual obligation: "2006, they're out of the picture."

Jamiroquai have had 13 nominations for The Brit Awards, and have yet to win one.

2006–2007: Post-Sony
In March 2006, Jamiroquai announced their switch to Columbia Records. Future releases will appear under the Columbia imprint.

In May 2006 Jamiroquai performed during the Laureus Sports Awards in Barcelona; the event was later televised by NBC in June. In October 2006, Jamiroquai recorded a live session for Live from Abbey Road at Abbey Road Studios. Their performance was shown alongside those of Damien Rice and the Goo Goo Dolls on the UK's Channel 4 in January 2007.

During February in 2007 Jamiroquai performed the record breaking Gig in the Sky in association with Sony Ericsson.

After leaving Sony, the band began to work on their seventh project, and several collaborations and side-projects. In a very short mid-2007 interview with Jamirotalk, drummer Derick McKenzie expressed his satisfaction with leaving Sony as the beginning of a period in which the band will have more creative control over their own work, together with plenty of room for experimentation and lack of pressure from a record company.

2008–present: Rock Dust Light Star and beyond
On 11 January 2008, Jay Kay himself posted a news item in which he thanked everyone who wished him the best for his birthday, and announced that the writing process for the new album had just begun. Only a day earlier, drummer Derick McKenzie posted an article on his MySpace weblog that the recording process for the same record had also begun.

On 15 January 2008, the band confirmed that the recording process had begun. According to the news item, eleven tracks had already been written for the new album, with more to come. As of 25 July 2010, the only known track name for the 7th album is "Rock Dust Light Star" which has been performed live and confirmed by Kay himself to be on the new album. On 13 February 2008, the band announced from their website that it would perform at the World Stage of the Rock in Rio — Madrid festival, being held in Arganda del Rey, Madrid with others artists who have (then) yet to be announced.

On 28 February 2008, Jamiroquai performed at the Khodynka Arena in Moscow, Russia at the launch of the new Audi A4 car. On 22 June 2008, Jamiroquai performed at the Wianki Festival in Kraków, Poland. On 4 July 2008, the band performed in front of a 75,000-people audience in the Rock in Rio Madrid festival. On 5 April 2009, Jamiroquai performed at the closing concert of Malaysian F1 Grand Prix in Sepang International Circuit Malaysia, and on 9 April Jamiroquai played at the Sentul International Convention Centre in Jakarta, Indonesia.

On 24 August 2009, Derrick McKenzie was interviewed on playvybz.com and talked about the upcoming album. He stated that Jamiroquai was then signed with Universal Records (UK) and that they had recorded more than 40 new tracks. Also the new album will be recorded live and have a style similar to the first three albums with the use of strings and horns. He claims the album will have less of a "disco sound" and will be a lot more funky and soulful. The album is uninfluenced by major record labels and will bring forth a new direction for the band.

During the first week of February 2010, Jay Kay mentioned the upcoming album on Jamiroquai's Facebook site, saying, "Hi Everybody, just wanted to say how amazing it is to have so many Friends on Facebook, half a million I believe. Therefore it feels like the right time to let you know that we are alive and kicking and in the final stages of our 8th album. I really can't wait to get out there and play it for you live in the very near future. Sending you all lots of good luck and love, Jay."

The first week of April 2010, Jay Kay announced on the Jamiroquai Facebook page that Jamiroquai would be supporting Stevie Wonder. "I am thrilled and excited to be supporting such a luminary as Stevie Wonder, can't wait to see you all there and get to play some stuff from the new album. Love Jay".

Jay Kay has mentioned on an Italian website, CNRmedia.com, that the new album, still untitled, will tentatively be released in September 2010.

Based on official mailing list e-mails (related to jamiroquai.com and Jamiroquai's record label) promoting a contest, Jamiroquai are now signed to Mercury Records/Universal On 24 June 2010, the band played a warm-up gig at Debut London to a small crowd. The set list featured songs from all the Jamiroquai albums except for Dynamite as well as a brand new song titled "Rock Dust Light Star". On 26 June upon supporting Stevie Wonder at Hard Rock Calling Festival at Hyde Park, a new album was confirmed and stated to be released in October 2010, and the photography for it was taken in which Jay Kay posed in costume in front of the crowd behind him. On 21 July at a concert in Nîmes, Jay told the crowd their new album would be out in November and Paul Turner also told Funky Tivi (a French web TV) music style of the new album will be rather funk/rock.

On 16 August 2010 it was announced on Jamiroquai.com that the new album will be titled Rock Dust Light Star and be released in November 2010.

On 1 September 2010, Jay Kay featured on The Chris Moyles Show (This edition hosted by Vernon Kay) and the Single White Knuckle Ride was played for the first time, live on air. It was met with massive critical praise from people texting the show, many of them claiming that "Funk is back".

On 1 October 2010, Jamiroquai appeared on UK television's Later...with Jools Holland. Rock Dust Light Star was the first performance of the show, and was well received. They also performed Deeper Underground and Blue Skies.

On 1 November 2010, they released their long anticipated seventh album, Rock Dust Light Star. Recorded in Jay Kay's home studio in Buckinghamshire, it saw a return to their earlier, less pop-like sound. Despite both singles, Blue Skies and White Knuckle Ride reaching into Top 100 charts worldwide, the album sold a mere 34,378 copies on its debut, around half the amount sold of the previous album Dynamite.

On 9 June 2011, the band released a new track called "Smile" for free download on their Soundcloud site. "Smile" has a sound similar to that of the early albums and has been met with high appraisal amongst fans and critics alike. The band ran a competition to choose the artwork for the cover, Jay picked the winning design which was by Australian designer Zbigniew Klej.

On 18 July 2011, Jay Kay was rumoured to be joining this year's Strictly Come Dancing. Jay Kay had frequently said that this was a major goal of his.

On 6 April 2012, Jamiroquai's Official Site announced the American release of Jamiroquai's seventh album, Rock Dust Light Star, in a two releases, the first, a double lp/cd bundle for release on 'Record Store Day' on 21 April 2012 in independent record stores and then a CD release on the following Tuesday, 24 April 2012.

On 21 April 2012, Jamiroquai's long anticipated seventh album, Rock Dust Light Star, after a 2-year delay, received its American release in a double vinyl LP/CD bundle as a 'special release' on 'Record Store Day' at all independent record stores. A CD Version of Rock Dust Light Star was also given a wider release on 24 April 2012. This release would be the first release through a subsidiary company of Universal Music Group, Executive Music Group, a company that handles foreign music releases for U.S. Music Distribution.

On 21 August 2012, Sony Music Japan announced, for the 20th Anniversary of Jamiroquai in 2013, they would release 'reissues' of their 1st 3 studio album efforts, 1993's 'Emergency On Planet Earth', 1994's 'Return Of The Space Cowboy' & 1996's 'Travelling Without Moving'. These 'reissues' would feature complete 'remasterings' of each album and have a bonus CD with all the 'B-Side material, live material & rarities' of each album era of the band. The street date for these reissues, only in Japan, was listed for 23 October 2012. But the street dates came and went and online boutiques listed these reissues on 'backorder', basically meaning they were abandoned and weren't coming out.

On 16 January 2013, both the Official Jamiroquai Website & Sony Music Ireland announced, given Sony Music Japan never released them, would be releasing the 'remastered reissues' of Jamiroquai's first 3 album efforts after all in deluxe 2CD editions for the 20th anniversary of Jamiroquai in Ireland/UK. The street dates for these 3 reissues are 8 March 2013 (Ireland) & 11 March 2013 (UK). Additional features of these reissues will be the originally reported 'bonus CD' with 'B-side material, Live material & rarities' from each album's prospective era, expanded 'digipack artwork packaging' and a new 2000 word essay written by Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay with reminisces of the band's past, present & future. As for a stateside release of these remasters, online boutiques were released in the US on 19 March 2013. It was additionally announced on Amazon.com UK that the 3 remastered Jamiroquai albums will see a 'double gatefold deluxe vinyl' release, featuring a few additional bonus tracks per album that were highlights of the original releases, on 25 March 2013 in the UK. U.S. vinyl reissues were relesason on 26 March 2013.

Buffalo Man
Buffalo Man is the name of the silhouette character featured on most of the covers of Jamiroquai's releases. It was created by Jay Kay between 1992 and 1993. It is based on the Minotaur from the Greek fable 'Theseus and the Minotaur'. Jay Kay stated "I really identify with Theseus. In fact, I'd say I am the most similar person to Theseus to come out of Stretford in the past 50 years."



Origins
Buffalo Man was created sometime prior to the release of their 1992 single When You Gonna Learn. Allegedly it was originally sketched by the band's primary songwriter and front-man Jason Kay, as Buffalo Man is seemingly a self portrait silhouette of Kay wearing a buffalo hat. The mark has been used on almost every commercial (and sometimes non-commercial) release of the band's output in some form or another; usually the unique symbol is pictured unaltered, but there have been times where it is shown in a stylised manner to suit the artwork or song.



Notable variations
Over the years, Buffalo Man has seen some temporary changes or interesting thematic uses:

"Half the Man", The Return of the Space Cowboy For the single "Half The Man", Buffalo Man is on the cover as a keyring with a heart in the clasp representing the fact it is a love song and the keyring itself is split down the middle in two halves to represent the song title. Buffalo Man also has a silver heart.

"Space Cowboy", The Return of the Space Cowboy For the single "Space Cowboy", Buffalo Man is present on the cover as a shaped cigarette paper for a half-complete cannabis joint, in reference to the song's praise of the drug.

"Virtual Insanity", Travelling Without Moving For the single of "Virtual Insanity", Buffalo Man appears in the place of the Ferrari horse in an homage to Jason's love of sports cars. For the album cover to Travelling Without Moving, the artwork is similar, but takes on an embossed effect and is seen on a metal grille.

"Cosmic Girl", "Everyday" For these two releases, Buffalo Man is pictured with a star over his heart and two intersecting orbital rings.

Synkronized While the design remained fundamentally unaltered, Buffalo Man has been turned into a laser-cut mirror and photographed from interesting angles by Midori Tsukagoshi. On some editions, for the disc itself, no ink has been used on the character, but the same stone background found on the front cover has been used for the rest of the disc, thus allowing the consumer to recreate the photographed effect.

A Funk Odyssey For this album, the Buffalo Man was notably absent from the cover; instead, the laser lights formed an outline of the Buffalo Man logo, which could be seen much more clearly in the album's liner notes.

Dynamite The US release and the double-disc Australian Tour Edition featured a gold Buffalo Man. Other releases saw a picture of Jay Kay instead.

Rock Dust Light Star The letter "i" in the title is replaced with the Buffalo Man, making the first appearance in a Jamiroquai album cover since 1999's Synkronized (not counting the alternative artwork for Dynamite). The US cover for the album features a glossy yellow Buffalo Man standing upon a glowing floor. The vinyl release also features another cover including the Buffalo Man.

Text logo


Just like the Buffalo Man, the Jamiroquai text logo has also had several variations depending on the theme. The oldest version of the logo is the one seen on the Acid Jazz Records release of When You Gonna Learn. In comparison to the current text logo one can see that the old Acid Jazz Records version of the logo was more angular at points, together with the letters being much thinner. Several variations of the current logo also exist. Releases of "Cosmic Girl" and the promo CD of "Everyday" had replaced the dots above the 'i' letters with stars. Other slight, temporary variations include a slight vertical stretch of the typeface, as seen on the cover art of A Funk Odyssey and Rock Dust Light Star.

Members

 * Current members


 * Jay Kay – lead vocals (1992–present)
 * Derrick McKenzie – drums (1994–present)
 * Sola Akingbola – percussion (1994–present)
 * Rob Harris – guitar (2000–present)
 * Matt Johnson – keyboards (2002–present)
 * Paul Turner – bass (2005–present)
 * James Russell – saxophone & flute (2010–present)
 * Jim Corry – saxophone (2010–present)
 * Malcolm Strachan – trumpet (2010–present)


 * Former members


 * Toby Smith – keyboards (1992–2002)
 * Wallis Buchanan – didgeridoo (1992–1999)
 * Stuart Zender – bass (1992–1998)
 * Nick Van Gelder – drums (1992–1993)
 * DJ D-Zire – wheels of steel (1992–2001)
 * Gavin Dodds – guitar (1992–1994)
 * Maurizio Ravalico – percussion (1992–1994)
 * Nick Tydman – bass (1992)
 * Simon Bartholomew – guitar (1992)
 * Mike Smith – saxophone (1993–1994, 1999–2000)
 * Glenn Nightingale - guitar (1993)
 * Adrian Revell – saxophone & flute (1995–1997)
 * Winston Rollins – trombone & trumpet (1994–1997)
 * Martin Shaw – trumpet & flugelhorn (1995–2000)
 * Simon Katz – guitar (1995–2000)
 * Nick Fyffe – bass (1999–2003)
 * Simon Carter – keyboards (1999–2002)
 * Richard Murphy - bass (2005)

Classic lineup (1995–1997)

 * Jay Kay – lead vocals
 * DJ D-Zire – wheels of steel
 * Simon Katz – guitar
 * Toby Smith – keyboards
 * Stuart Zender – bass
 * Derrick McKenzie – drums
 * Sola Akingbola – percussion
 * Winston Rollins – trombone & trumpet
 * Martin Shaw – trumpet & flugelhorn
 * Adrian Revell – saxophone & flute
 * Wallis Buchanan – didgeridoo
 * Donny Wallace - Platins

Discography
Studio albums
 * 1993 Emergency on Planet Earth
 * 1994 The Return of the Space Cowboy
 * 1996 Travelling Without Moving
 * 1999 Synkronized
 * 2001 A Funk Odyssey
 * 2005 Dynamite
 * 2010 Rock Dust Light Star
 * 2013/2014 Untitled 8th studio album