Shakatak

Career

It was the release of "Easier Said Than Done" that gave the band the radio exposure needed for their first top-twenty hit. This record introduced their instrumental-unison vocal sound to a much wider audience, and the track stayed in the UK Singles Chart for seventeen weeks. The follow-up, "Night Birds", was their first single to reach the top ten, and the album of the same name gave Shakatak their first gold album, entering at number four and remaining in the charts for twenty-eight weeks. By now a major international act, the success of the release gave them the number-one jazz album slot in Japan, and attracted interest across Europe and South America. "Night Birds" was used in the feature film, Away We Go, directed by Sam Mendes, and was used as the demonstration song on many Casio piano keyboards such as the Casio CT-460.

Two more albums – Invitations and Out of This World – were recorded in 1982 and 1983, resulting in several more chart hits, and paving the way for the next major breakthrough in the band's career. With a subtle change in musical direction, yet still retaining the band's identity, Jill Saward (formerly of Fusion Orchestra, Brandy and Citizen Gang) became their sole lead singer to make Shakatak's fifth album, Down on the Street. The resulting single releases "Down on the Street" and "Watching You" had great success, and brought them attention in new parts of the world. The following year saw the release of the group's first live album, which was recorded in both Tokyo and London.

In 1988, Shakatak were commissioned to write the official song for the 1988 Kenwood Cup yacht race entitled Racing With The Wind which was used in Japanese Kenwood advertisements and was released on an album called Da Makani exclusively released in Japan.

However, following this success the band felt it was time that they re-directed their efforts back to singles and an album for release to the rest of the world. The result was Something Special, closely followed by the night club and chart hit "Mr Manic & Sister Cool" from their next LP, Manic and Cool.

In the 1990s, the band had success in the US when they had two albums that went to No 1 in the contemporary jazz charts and were also awarded the Japanese Grammy for best international instrumental album six years running.

Shakatak continue to appear regularly throughout the world with recent festival performances at Jakjazz, the Jakarta International Jazz Festival, Bangkok, Hua Hin and the Bratislava Jazz Day. They make annual appearances at the Billboard Clubs in Japan, and the Pizza Express Jazz Room in London, plus numerous other concert and club performances.

The band celebrated their thirtieth anniversary year in 2010.

Bassist George Anderson released his second solo album, Expressions, on 3 September 2012 through Secret Records. Coming three years after his first album Positivity, this album again had Anderson writing, arranging and producing all of the tracks.

Keyboardist Bill Sharpe worked with American jazz pianist Don Grusin on a joint project called Geography released in 2007. Sharpe's second collaboration with Grusin, Trans Atlantica, was released on 3 September 2012. It was also issued through Secret Records, and included Geography as a special 2-CD package.

Albums

Compilations

Videos