AWARD WINNING A CAPPELLA POWERHOUSE
TAKE 6
SETS THE STANDARD FOR JAZZ VOCAL RECORDINGS
Heads Up Debut Features Aaron Neville, Al Jarreau,
George Benson,
Jon Hendricks, Roy Hargrove, Till Brönner, Brian McKnight,
And Others
A cappella powerhouse Take 6 marks a new jazz vocal milestone
with the September 30, 2008, release of The Standard
(HUCD 3142). Winners of 10 GRAMMY® Awards, 10 Dove Awards,
one Soul Train Award and two NAACP Image Award nominations,
the influential sextet – Mark Kibble, Claude V. McKnight
III, Dr. Cedric Dent, David Thomas, Alvin Chea and Joey Kibble
– makes their debut on Heads Up International with a
recording of mostly jazz (and some R&B) standards, including
“Straighten Up and Fly Right,” “A-Tisket,
A-Tasket,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “What’s
Going On” and “Windmills of Your Mind.”
The Standard showcases a new jazz-influenced approach
for the group. “While we sing lyrics that always exemplify
our spiritual and moral convictions, what we really are at
the core is a jazz vocal group,” says David Thomas,
a member of the Take 6 lineup since 1985. “So we decided
to do an album of jazz standards, a record that will stand
up as the jazz vocal album for all time.”
Take 6 co-founder Claude McKnight also stands behind the ambitious
claim. “We go into every project saying it will be the
best,” he says. “At least the best we’ve
ever done, and depending on the concept or the genre, it may
be the best that’s ever been done by anyone. When we
take on a project or step into a new phase of our career,
we’re not afraid to say, ‘Hey, let’s move
some mountains.’” read more
AWARD
WINNING A CAPPELLA POWERHOUSE TAKE 6
SETS THE STANDARD FOR JAZZ VOCAL RECORDINGS
Heads Up Debut Features Aaron Neville, Al Jarreau,
George Benson,
Jon Hendricks, Roy Hargrove, Till Brönner, Brian McKnight,
And Others
A cappella powerhouse Take 6 marks a new jazz vocal milestone
with the September 30, 2008, release of The Standard
(HUCD 3142). Winners of 10 GRAMMY® Awards, 10 Dove Awards,
one Soul Train Award and two NAACP Image Award nominations,
the influential sextet – Mark Kibble, Claude V. McKnight
III, Dr. Cedric Dent, David Thomas, Alvin Chea and Joey Kibble
– makes their debut on Heads Up International with a recording
of mostly jazz (and some R&B) standards, including “Straighten
Up and Fly Right,” “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” “Someone
To Watch Over Me,” “What’s Going On”
and “Windmills of Your Mind.”
The Standard showcases a new jazz-influenced approach
for the group. “While we sing lyrics that always exemplify
our spiritual and moral convictions, what we really are at the
core is a jazz vocal group,” says David Thomas, a member
of the Take 6 lineup since 1985. “So we decided to do
an album of jazz standards, a record that will stand up as the
jazz vocal album for all time.”
Take 6 co-founder Claude McKnight also stands behind the ambitious
claim. “We go into every project saying it will be the
best,” he says. “At least the best we’ve ever
done, and depending on the concept or the genre, it may be the
best that’s ever been done by anyone. When we take on
a project or step into a new phase of our career, we’re
not afraid to say, ‘Hey, let’s move some mountains.’”
The Standard features guest appearances by veteran
jazzmen George Benson, Al Jarreau, Jon Hendricks, Roy Hargrove,
Till Brönner and others, as well as R&B luminaries
Aaron Neville and Brian McKnight (Claude’s brother).
“We decided that, for any given song on this record, we
would ask for the person who we thought would make the most
sense for the song,” says McKnight. “And everyone
we asked said yes. We’ve never really had a problem reaching
out and finding whomever it is we wanted. That’s been
a blessing for us.”
Take 6 gives definitive vocal treatments to such jazz classics
as “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Straighten Up and
Fly Right” with vocalist/guitarist George Benson, “Someone
to Watch Over Me” with trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and “Seven
Steps to Heaven” with Jon Hendricks, Al Jarreau and German
flugelhornist Till Brönner (featuring new lyrics by Jon
Hendricks). The Standard’s crowning glory is
a version of “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” Ella Fitzgerald’s
signature song – created in the studio using her original
vocal from the classic 1938 Decca Records 78.
Other highlights include “Do You Know What It Means to
Miss New Orleans” with Aaron Neville, Marvin Gaye’s
“What’s Going On” with Brian McKnight, Quincy
Jones’ “Grace” and “Windmills of Your
Mind” (from the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair).
Listening to Take 6 causes one to appreciate their brilliant
vocal mastery passed to them, as a mantel, from early American
musical icons such as the Hi-Lo’s, Ella Fitzgerald and
Stevie Wonder. Today, Take 6 has managed to keep that mantel,
yet still share some of its influence with countless other black
male pop groups of the 1990s.
Take 6 launched their career by singing traditional spirituals
and newly composed gospel material. They released their self-titled
debut album on Warner Brothers’ Reprise label in 1988,
and spent the next two decades crafting a series of records
that defied easy categorization but instead embraced a broad
cross-section of styles – soul, gospel, R&B, pop,
jazz and more. Although they have enlisted the help of session
musicians along the way, the greatest strength of their recordings
has been – and continues to be – their richly layered
and masterful vocal harmonies. Their talent, hard work and Christian
faith has earned them their place as one of the most enduring
and best-loved groups in all a cappella.
Never content to rest on their substantial laurels, Take 6 continues
to grow and evolve. McKnight says, “The fact that we’re
going outside of what we would normally do, and including some
jazz standards in this collection, leads us to believe that
we can go outside of the traditional Take 6 listener and bring
some other people into the party that we’ve been having
for twenty years.”
The Standard is destined to be one of the finest jazz
vocal recordings and a classic of its kind.
The a cappella jazz group known as Take 6 are not only the heirs
to the rich tradition of the doo-wop and gospel groups of the
1950s, but also the leaders in the second wave of jazz and pop
vocal groups that emerged in the 1990s. With these noteworthy
legacies at their foundation, these multiple GRAMMY winners
continue to look and move in a forward direction as the first
decade of the 21st century unfolds.
The Take 6 story began at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama,
in 1980, when freshman Claude V. McKnight III formed a quartet
known as the Gentlemen’s Estate Club. When tenor Mark
Kibble heard the group rehearsing in – of all places –
a campus restroom, he joined in the harmonies and performed
onstage with the group that same night.
Mervyn Warren joined shortly after, and the group briefly took
the name of Alliance. They performed in local churches and on
campus for the next few years, with personnel changing frequently
as older members graduated and new voices arrived on campus
to replace them.
After college, the group signed with the Warner Brothers label
in 1987 and changed their name to Take 6. Their self-titled
debut album, released the following year, scored two GRAMMY
Awards and landed in the top ten on Billboard’s Contemporary
Jazz and Contemporary Christian charts.
The group’s swinging, harmony-rich gospel sound attracted
a flurry of attention, and the group went on to record or perform
with numerous jazz luminaries, including Quincy Jones, Ella
Fitzgerald and Stevie Wonder.
The 1990 followup album, So Much 2 Say, was equally
successful, climbing to the number 2 spot on Billboard’s
Contemporary Jazz chart and scoring a GRAMMY for Best Contemporary
Soul Gospel Album. Warren left the group a year later to pursue
a career as a producer. He was replaced by Joey Kibble, Mark’s
younger brother.
The group added instrumentation to their purely a cappella sound
beginning with the 1991 holiday release, He Is Christmas.
The album scored yet another GRAMMY, this time for Best Jazz
Vocal Performance. A string of finely crafted recordings continued
throughout the remainder of the decade: Join the Band
(1994), Brothers (1996), So Cool (1998) and
a second holiday album, We Wish You a Merry Christmas
(1999). Join the Band and Brothers were both
GRAMMY winners.
In 2000, Take 6 released a live recording and a best-of collection,
followed by Beautiful World in 2002. The group left
Warner Brothers after Beautiful World and launched
their own Take 6 label. Their maiden voyage in the new venture
was Feels Good, released in 2006.
Take 6 joins Heads Up International with the release of The
Standard in August 2008. The album includes guest appearances
by R&B luminaries Aaron Neville and Brian McKnight (Claude’s
brother), as well as veteran jazzmen George Benson, Al Jarreau
and Jon Hendricks. “While we sing lyrics that always exemplify
our spiritual and moral convictions, what we really are at the
core is a jazz vocal group,” says Dave Thomas, a member
of the Take 6 lineup since 1985. “So we decided to do
an album of jazz standards, a record that will stand up as the
jazz vocal album for all time.”
McKnight stands behind the ambitious claim. “We go into
every project saying it will be the best,” he says. “At
least the best we’ve ever done, and depending on the concept
or the genre, it may be the best that’s ever been done
by anyone. When we take on a project or step into a new phase
of our career, we’re not afraid to say, ‘Hey, let’s
move some mountains.’”
