Andrew D. Gordon, Frank Villafranca

Ultra Smooth Jazz Grooves for Violin

Internationally renowned authors, musicians and recording artists, Frank Villafranca and Andrew D. Gordon of The Super Groovers have composed a collection of grooves and melodies in the Smooth Jazz Genre creating an exciting supplemental jazz study series for beginner, intermediate and advanced jazz students and musicians.

After releasing their first CD Supergroovin, which received world wide airplay, they recognized a need in the music publishing business for a series of books on contemporary improvising within the 'Smooth Jazz' genre. Andrew composed and recorded all the rhythm tracks used in this book. In their opinion, the melodies were so catchy they couldn't resist developing them into completed songs.

Mainline Connection, Villefranche-sur-Mer and You're The Only One In My Life, are a few featured on their second CD, Mainline Connection.

The smooth jazz grooves in this 50 page book feature a variety of contemporary rhythm section styles including R&B, Jazz, Funk, Top 40, Rock, Gospel, Hip Hop and Latin. These stylistic influences are frequently associated with smooth jazz. Popular artists in this genre include, The Super Groovers, David Sanborn, Eric Marienthal, Kenny G, David Benoit, Dave Koz, Tom Scott, Gerald Albright, Candy Dulfer, Wilton Felder, Boney James, Chris Botti, Chuck Mangione, Sade, George Benson, Peter White, Lee Ritenour, Earl Klugh, Larry Carlton, Jeff Lorber, Brian Culbertson, George Duke, Paul Hardcastle, Joe Sample, Spyro Gyra, Pat Metheny, Four Play, The Yellow Jackets and The Rippingtons.

We suggest that you become acquainted with as many of these artists as possible.

On each of the 20 tracks, the groove is separated into 3 melodic ideas. Each melodic idea (example or riff) is played first, by the Violin with the groove, followed by just the rhythm section groove, without the Violin. The 1st example is usually the easiest, the 2nd slightly harder and the 3rd the most difficult.

The Super Groovers were very fortunate to have violinist extraordinaire Christian Howes perform and record the Violin examples in the book.

Versions for each groove are available as midi files or extended MP3 files where the rhythm tracks for each groove are recorded for approximately 2 minutes.