Smooth/Nu - Jazz flute & voice. "Theo Ross writes the kind of music that warms your heart. It's rich, expansive and flows as easily as a chocolate drink from Antwerp. A major talent just waiting to be discovered". Stewart Coxhead - Acoustic Alchemy/Jeff K

4 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Smooth Jazz, JAZZ: Jazz Vocals



Details:
Growing up in the UK during the 60s & 70s, my musical influences were varied... from Miles Davis, the Tamla and Stax artists, to the Beatles. The advent of smooth jazz in the 70s was a turning point. Artists such as Grover Washington, Ronnie Lawes & Dave Valentine, demonstrated a strong melodic vibe with harmonic integrity; a more widely accessible form of music which contained 'groove'...

The smooth jazz genre during the 80s had lost some of its popular appeal in the UK, and at that point my heart was established in both straight ahead and smooth jazz. A few years ago. I heard a cut of Kirk Whalum's "Now 'til Foreverâ which shifted me to a place that I felt that that kind of expression was where I belonged as an artist, and was hooked.

Predominantly I had used the voice to express what I felt because of its vast variational qualities. However, the flute along with the electro/acoustic technical advances made for instrument enhancement, particularly in live work, suits the smooth jazz genre perfectly.


Ethos

Some people relate to the human voice, others to musical
sound... My enjoyment arises from operating on both planes - the universal primitive sound of the voice, and talking through an instrument - the flute. Recognizing a musical idea and playing with it, is an important part of the creative process of producing the form and melody of a song. If a piece of music can be listened to repeatedly and it still evokes a movement within the inner-body, then that might be termed as spiritual, which resonates on a deep level; and spaces between the notes are equally as important, if not more so, than the notes themselves.


Reviews

Denis Poole, smoothjazznow, smoothjazzvibes â ...with 'Cut the Chord' Theo Ross has the way forward. With its essence of simplicity and variety, it demonstrates in only a few
tracks a taste of quality that we can look forward to on albums to come.â


Sandy Shore and Jamie Trent - smoothjazz.com â...we love 'Without You' and 'Lovestruck' and canât wait to play them on our station..."