About Me
"When I see the Groove Gravy label on a record I know immediately it will be music I'm bound to love" - Anne Litt, KCRW
"A breath of fresh air in the beat-heavy world of dance music" - The Oakland Tribune
The Groove Gravy Story:
Groove Gravy's philosophy for releasing records revolves around introducing music that's infectious and funky, but musically smart, combining not only eclectic sampling and grooves, but also live musicians and true song craftsmanship. The result is a blend of laid back beats, funked-up world rhythms and an urban attitude. "We're taking direct aim at a particular musical niche" says producer and label head Roy Shakked, "It's some branch of electronica - soulful, funky and eclectic. It's neither club-thumping, nor ambient chill-out... I guess it's somewhere in the radical middle between themfor people who aren't musically polarized."
A graduate of Berklee College of Music, and active in the industry for over a decade, Roy learned to navigate the business through a variety of positions. By 1996, he was tired of focusing strictly on the business end of things and started doing small production projects through his own Score Music Productions, Inc, leading to the formation of Groove Gravy Records in March, 2002. The label's first release, Fresh Goods by The Tao of Groove, hit the street the end of May. Receiving phenomenal reviews and meaningful airplay, with Top 40-charting at dozens of radio stations around the U.S. tracks off the CD quickly started being licensed for television, movies, and other album compilations.
Groove Gravy's tracks have since appeared in television shows Sex and the City, Nip/Tuck, The OC, Miss Match, Jake In Progress, Love Monkey, and Without a Trace, among others; a Nissan Motors commercial; movies Poseidon, The Devil Wears Prada, Catch That Kid and Cross Bronx, and countless album compilations around the world.
So what separates Groove Gravy's releases from others on the market today? The perfect balance... Featuring exclusive tracks from in-house Groove Gravy artists such as Jazzelicious, HighEnd, The Tao of Groove and Shihan; never before released remixes, including Jazzelicious' highly acclaimed remixes of Sarah Vaughan, McCoy Tyner and Carmen McRae; well-known tracks from luminaries such as Masters At Work, Tosca, Ursula Rucker, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Ursula 1000, Soulstice and others, as well as superb "new discovery" cuts from outstanding underground producers and artists. "We chose every track for its interest and intelligence," notes Shakked. "The tempos vary, the moods vary. We wanted this to be a solid listening experience throughout to really move you around musically. That's what I like to hear."
Groove Gravy's evolving catalog of recordings is interesting, intelligent, and highly musical, targeted to a new audience that may be hungry to satisfy their musical appetite with a delicious, smart new mix of contemporary sound. We suspect there are many out there...
