A tribute to the funky side of Jimmy Smith and a dedication to the marvelous New Orleans heritage !

New York based tenorist Craig Handy is well known for his international collaboration with Art Blakeys „Jazz Messengers“, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, Charles Mingus Dynasty, The Cookers, Betty Carter and many more. His 2014 highly awarded album „Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith“ combined his jazz roots with funk.

Tony Remy from London worked with Brit super band Incognito, Any Lennox and James Brown saxophone legend Pee Wee Ellis.
The organ trio „BAM“, Bublath, Andrey, May is based in Munich/bavaria, founded by Guido May, who is one of German most versatile drummers. Collaboration with Pee Wee Ellis, Fred Wesley, Benny Golson, Larry Coryell, Joey DeFrancesco, Lionel Hampton Celebration Jazz Orchestra, …

Craig Handy played for the first time as part of Alex Deutsch's Gelee Royal 2001 at P&B, before he was a guest a few years later with the aforementioned Cookers. Another, almost obvious Austrian "connection" is Raphael Wressnig, who often invited the saxophonist. The "link" is of course Jimmy Smith, the "Godfather" of the Hammond organ, who plays an important musical role for both Wressnig and Handy. Another spectacular project was that of Kip Hanrahan, which we realized in 2008 and in which Craig Handy also played. For the sake of completeness, it should also be mentioned that his band "2nd Line Smith", which has already been mentioned, has of course also played on our stage. Welcome back, Craig! CH
PS: For those who are interested: Craig is the son of a certain John Handy, an outstanding alto saxophonist who worked with Charles Mingus and was intensively involved with Indian music, which can be heard on exceptions with Zakir Hussein and Ali Akbar Khan (!).