MANDOO, French Westcoast Group

Our first album is a tasty blend of Soul, Funk, Jazz & Pop music and offers original compositions especially influenced by Californian stuff from the late 70's to early 80's. We’ve tried to stick to those westcoast colors throughout the whole project, emphasizing melodies, harmonies and arrangements, and searching to find our own and original sound that would echo our feelings on love, joy and pain.


We’ve been listening over and over again to artists that have always guided our music: Bill LaBounty, Al Jarreau, George Benson, Steely Dan, Mickael Mc Donald, Jay Graydon, Bill Champlin, David Foster, Pages, The Crusaders, Boz Scaggs, Kenny Loggins, James Taylor, Gino Vanelli, Hall & Oates but also Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Bill Withers, Quincy Jones...


We tried to follow Jay Graydon’s advice who declared: “Try to look for memorable little secondary melodies, whether it be in horn parts, even a string line or a synth line or a guitar line. Little secondary memorable things help, like the frosting on the cake. But, if you don't start with a great song, obviously nothing's happening. You've got to have a very memorable melody to begin with and a good lyric, or nothing else much matters. Just try to pay attention to having the whole package as memorable as possible.”

WORKING IN THE CD