Rare Groove Ensemble play Marsden Jazz Festival!

We’re all looking forward to next weekend – that is 10th-12th October – as the band will once again have the pleasure of playing at the 17th famous Marsden Jazz Festival.

This 3-day festival has in the past seen national stars such as Humphry Littlton, as well as a whole range of local talent.  There’s loads going on this year too, including saxophonist Dave O’Higgins as well as rising-stars Empirical.

Exciting times!

Empirical are going to be a must-see for anyone around Marsden on the 11th, and as they are during the afternoon, that leaves plenty of time to see the Rare Groove Ensemble’s sister-band Extra Curricular in the evening.

But…

…perhaps most excitingly of all is that the Rare Groove Ensemble will be performing in the festival at the Puleside WMC on Friday 10th Oct, kicking off at 8.30pm.

It’s going to be a great gig – this will be our third trip out to the hills, and we’ve found that the Marsden crowd are always up for a party!

So, if you haven’t heard us before, come ride the jazz-bus from Marsden town centre, and find out what all the fuss is about!

You can check us out on the official Marsden Jazz Festival page at: http://www.marsdenjazzfestival.com/Bands1.htm#Dirty_Boy

Please note that for this gig we are playing under our alternative name of ‘Dirty Boy Jazz Massive’.

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Check out our website!  www.raregrooveensemble.co.uk

New website…!

Rare Groove go pro on the web…

Courtesy of our good friend George, we now have a shiny brand new website!

Check it out at: www.raregrooveensemble.co.uk

Last weeks gig

Really enjoyed the wedding gig in oldham!  Thought we rocked the joint and our choice of repertoire for the evening proved very sucessful as lots of people where up dancing! TThe gig featured Thabo, in his Michael Jackson style trilby hat, me in my groovy skirt, mark and his double sax trick, aidan and his sexy nord, jack and his epiphany amp and noah and the shiny red drumkit.

Noah stood in on drums for the evening and i thought did a wonderful job!

But we love weddings are would like to play more! Always guarenteed a good, happy crowd!

 

weddings…!

So, what with it being the 1st June today, we are now well and truly into the wedding season. This is particularly relevant for me as it’s going to be my wedding in just under 6 weeks! Good times. And yes, I might well be playing at my own wedding…

Got lots of exciting gigs to look forward to. We’re thinking of new songs to stick in our set too…(and any suggestions are appreciated!)

After being inspired by the DJ at the Oldham gig, I think we’ve decided to get Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up into our set, mainly because it’s a completely brilliant track! That’s one for our master-vocalist Thabo I think.

Got another Brand New Heavies track on the way too…Last To Know from their album Shelter. This track has what I consider to be the best saxophone solo ever played (on a coolness:time ratio) – you’ve got to check it out! The solo is something like 8-bars long, but…well you’ll see when you listen to it. Hopefully we’ll be able to replicate some of it’s party vibe.

adventures in web advertising…

So now we’re being splashed about all over the internet!

We’ve got a few things on the boil at the moment, but if you search for ‘bands’ in leeds, or even in west yorkshire, you should find a lovely banner with our name and logo all over it.

Check it out here!

Very exciting!

Should point out that our fantastic new logo was designed by our good friend Joel, who’s got a talent for that sort of thing.  He’s done a fab job too I think.

Pictures up!

So, new blog pictures are up and running!  Check the flickr link on the right of this page for more, or our myspace page (www.myspace.com/raregrooveensemble).

Oldham wedding gig last night

Big thanks to T & J for putting on a great event in Oldham last night. Congratulations and all that.

Great crowd and a nice venue – we really appreciated the big stage, and the DJ was playing some amazing tunes between out sets! Great to see people dancing and having a good time too!

I really liked the set list that we decided on for this gig. Just The Two Of Us by Bill Withers went down a treat – Thabo on vocals producing some seriously smooth vocals on this one. Worked really well coming out of the Anthony Hamilton track Coming From Where I’m From I thought.

Set 1 was a more chilled and mellow one, but people were up and dancing by the end. Good to see. We put most of our really dancy numbers in set 2, including the infamous Stevie Wonder Medley… Some great moves being displayed on the dance floor by some of the guests! I was particularly impressed that Thabo managed to quote a whole line of a Craig David track in Apparently Nothing!

Anyway, should probably plug the website…if you fancy seeing & hearing more of us then have a look at http://www.myspace.com/raregrooveensemble

Mark.

Rare Groove Blog!

Wow, first post. We are the Rare Groove Ensemble – a party/wedding/function band working in the North of the UK. Based in the Leeds/Huddersfield area, we gig all over the shop and have a great time playing for loads of different people.

Keep checking back here if you get a chance as we’ll all be updating the site with info on the band, where we are playing, and general banter. Might even put some music or pics up…