Raphael Wressnig – Hammond B-3 organ, vocals
Gisele Jackson, vocals
Enrico Crivellaro – guitar
Hans Jürgen Bart – drums
Raphael Wressnig works his mojo overtime. The music world caught on to his highly acclaimed 2014 album “Soul Gumbo”, made in New Orleans with luminaries like Meters bassist George Porter Jr., Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and R&B icon Walter “Wolfman” Washington. Wressnig is back with two powerful new albums. For two decades now, Wressnig has happily taken his melange of music styles around the world: the entire European Union, Russia, the Middle East, parts of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, North and South America. He has grabbed the attention of an international claque of critics and has been nominated as “Best Organ Player of the Year” at the DownBeat Critics Poll in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017. For “The Soul Connection”, Raphael Wressnig travelled to São Paulo, Brazil, and joined forces with blues guitar boss Igor Prado. They cook up a gumbo stew of soul, old-school R&B and funk featuring vocal legends Wee Willie Walker, David Hudson and Leon Beal. Self-recorded, -produced, -mixed and -mastered, the album is a wonderful outcome of a simple connection. Wressnig is in the lineage of Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff and Jimmy McGriff, organists who first built the foundation on that special blend of jazz, blues and funk. Wressnig displays an absolute mastery of his instrument, but also a deep love for and knowledge of all the musical genres; yet he takes it out and adds his own view and spin to the music. “Captured Live” is a nine-song exercise in musical ecstasy thanks to Wressnig and his co-conspirators – The Soul Gift Band. Wressnig is justifiably proud of his central role in performing what he calls “heavy organ soul & funk”. Gisele Jackson started her career in the background choir of Ray Charles and in the bands of Donna Summers and James Brown. The singer from Baltimore, who also sang at the inauguration of US President Bill Clinton, knows how to take her audience by storm. Jackson and Wressnig have been touring with guitarist Enrico Crivellaro and drummer Hans-Jürgen Bart for years. They combine a contemporary sense of rhythm with raw roots sounds and show how much soul and groove there can be in modern soul and blues.
