A melting pot of strong melodies, rich harmonies, improvisation and hard beats: swing, emotion and energy in something completely new – that's Umbaji. After years as a permanent band member in Nils Landgren's Funk Unit as well as with Mezzoforte, Umbaji is the own project of saxophonist Jonas Wall. He has handpicked all the band members, all Scandinavians from Sweden, Iceland and Denmark, many of them mezzoforte colleagues. In Umbaji, Wall presents his own music, which he composed together with the trumpeter Ari Bragi Kárason, who lives in Copenhagen. Wall grew up in a multicultural home, his father Håkan taught the children songs of other languages, including Swahili. This is how the name of his own project came about. "In my compositions, there are elements of many different genres such as harmonies, rhythms, beats, melodies and improvisations from jazz, hip-hop, soul, pop and R&B. Just like in our society, we recycle and create something new through our music. We want to take up the melting pot of music, but at the same time inspire, arouse curiosity and create something new."

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