DERRICK MCKENZIE
Territory: Europe
“Drummer of the legendary British disco/funk band JAMIROQUAI”
BIO
Drummer of the legendary British disco/funk band JAMIROQUAI, Derrick Mckenzie was born a few years ago in London, UK. He started playing drums at the age of 6 and he was always into rhythm, time and music.
He joined his first band at the age of 14 which was a reagge band called Pure’n'Simple. He always stayed open for various music genres which led him to do an audition for soon-to-be one of the most musically influential and popular British band Jamiroquai. He has been with the band since 1994 and recorded many successful albums like Space Cowboy, Travelling Without Moving, Synkronized, Funk Odyssey, Rock Dust Light Star to name a few. Derrick's biggest influences throughout his musical path include Billy Cobham, Harvey Mason, Phillip Gould, Steve Gadd, Sly Dunbar, Patrice Rushen, Norman Connors, Incognito, Ronnie Laws, Donald Byrd, Art Blakey, Mint Condition, Aaron Spears, Mark Colenburg, Mark Guiliana, Marcus Miller, Yogi Horton, George Duke, Kleer and many more...
Derrick is a Grammy Award winner from 1998. Together with the band they won an award for one of their best know tracks "Virtual Insanity". Jamiroquai have sold more than 40 million albums worldwide and also won four awards at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. They won Ivor Novello award for best songwriting and composing.
JAZZ FUNK EXPERIENCE is a newly formed band presenting the collabo between highly acclaimed British formation Jamiroquai's drummer Derrick Mckenzie and a group of highest calliber Polish musicians. Meeting one of Polish finest pianist, an arranger and a composer Paweł Kaczmarczyk (http://pawelkaczmarczyk.com/en ) resulted in forming a jazz/funk/soul based band with the idea to bring multiple musical influences together and present them as one excellent piece while still keeping the entertaining factor. The band has 5 members among whom there is a multiple laureate of various prestigous awards (Grand Prix at the 40th Jazz nad Odra Festival) one of Polish bests bass player Michał Barański, talented guitarist Łukasz Belcyr and saxophonist Olaf Węgier whose characteristic style of playing derrives from combining multiple musical inspirations such as jazz, gospel, funk and hip- hop.