Search - Umbrella People :: Selling Water By the River

The name Umbrella People reflects the open door musical policy of its principles, keyboard player Julian Marshall and percussionist Martin Ditcham. Marshall certainly has a colourful background: he's a former classical student at the Royal College, co-writer of the late 70s Marshall-Hain hit "Dancing In The City", piano teacher at the renowned Dartington school in Devon and an all-round modern jazz fan. His appetite for Miles Davis and Joe Zawinul and for the seductive charms of contemporary dance beats is given full rein in this set of smooth but ingenious light fusion. Neither Marshall nor Ditcham are well known on the jazz scene, but three of these tracks are given strong jazz colour by the trumpet or flugel of Dick Pearce. The combination of Pearce's horn and UP's subtly funky rhythm tracks should please those with an ear for similarly moody trumpet settings by Mark Isham and Chris Botti. --Mark GilbertUmbrella People. 'Fine and strutting music'. The 20th century ended with the heat and passion of latin and cuban musics. The zeitgiest of the 21st century is urbane coolness. Umbrella People offer shades of Miles in a post-Dan landscape, echoes of Zen and Zawinal. The groove factor is high but the playing is spare, the atmosphere taut. That founders Julian Marshall and Martin Ditcham should have produced such a gorgeous first album is unsurprising. Marshall wrote Dancing in the City, a platinum selling single with Kit Hain, whilst Ditcham co-wrote Sweetest Taboo with Sade, successful in the charts for the second time recently. Working with trumpeter's trumpeter Dick Pearce (Dizzy Gillespie was one of his wedding guests), Umbrella People leave the first footprints in what will be a fascinating journey. Julian Marshall Keyboards. Martin Ditcham - Drums, Percussion and Drum Programming. Special Guests, Dick Pearce - Trumpet and Flugel Horn, Rosanna Schura Voice.