Nils Landgren Funk Unit with Ray Parker Jr. – Unbreakable (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 52:59 minutes | 678 MB | Genre: Contemporary Jazz, Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music
“Unbreakable” is the 11th studio release from Swedish band the Nils Landgren Funk Unit. The brainchild of trombonist Nils Landgren, this record features legends such as Ray Parker Jr., Randy Brecker, and Tim Hagans, making for an undeniably funky listen. The album was recorded in November 2016 in the legendary Atlantis Studios in Stockholm, also the recording site for artists like ABBA, Scorpions, Elvis Costello and Esbjörn Svensson.
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Nils Landgren Funk Unit – Teamwork (Extended Version) (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:19:26 minutes | 890 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music
This might well be the best Funk Unit that Nils Landgren has had gathered around him since 2010: technically outstanding, this is a group of team players who combine well with a great groove connection. James Brown meets Parliament meets Crusaders meets Funk Unit: that’s one way you could describe the musical concept on ‘Teamwork’. It is pure party feeling, the notes whirl coolly through the ranks, superb horn sets alternate with ecstatic solos, dance beats, smooth vocals and strong melodies, but there is also time for elegance and heartfelt blues. ‘Teamwork’ is all that and then some, played by a dream team of sweat-inducing funk workers with soul in their blood.
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Nils Landgren Funk Unit – Funky Abba (2004/2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:13 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Jazz, Funk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music
Nils Landgren isn’t a name only to be found among “the top rank of European jazz trombonists“ (Der Spiegel). He is also one of the wide-ranging set of artists to be found on the European jazz scene today. “A musical omnivore“ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and “a marvel of flexibility“ (Jazzthetik), whose interests and output cover many bases: whether the man with the red trombone is performing one of his frenetic concerts to enthusiastic fans with his grooving Funk Unit, singing with “hypnotic charm“ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), devoting himself, in collaboration with Esbjörn Svensson, to the reworking of Swedish folk songs, or celebrating kitschy chamber music or big band jazz – all reflect the many sides of the same person.
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Nils Landgren Funk Unit – Funk Is My Religion (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:10:45 minutes | 830 MB | Genre: Jazz, Funk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music
Back in 1994 when Nils Landgren started up his Funk Unit, there were those who asked whether there was actually any need for Swedish funk. After seventeen years, ten albums and several hundreds of concerts, the question has basically answered itself: to find the most fired-up take on this music anywhere, a sound which is inextricably welded into soul, rhythm and blues and jazz, and in which all of the instruments – and the vocals too – have an irresistible rhythmic urgency about them, this is definitely the band to see and hear. And if one turns to the pioneers, godfathers and grandees of the funk world – Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley, the musical prime movers behind James Brown, Ray Parker Jr., or Joe Sample from the Crusaders – then there’s no need to look any further: each and every one of them has played with the Funk Unit.
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