Shuffle Demons
Biography Shuffle Demons
The Shuffle Demons
first broke onto the Canadian music scene in 1984 with an electrifying musical fusion that drew in equal measure from Sun Ra, Charles Mingus, Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. This band is genre bending, highly visually entertaining, funny, and best of all, can really PLAY. All their eye catching, crowd-pleasing stunts are backed up by incredibly solid musicianship and real groundbreaking playing.
The Shuffle Demons have released 10 albums and 9 videos over their 37 year career. They have played 1000s of shows at every major jazz and folk festival in Canada during 25 Canadian tours. They toured Europe 15 times playing from Estonia to Italy, from the Netherlands to Norway, from Switzerland to Sweden, from Germany to Belgium, the Yokohama Jazz Promenade (Japan’s biggest Jazz Fest), on the Barenaked Ladies Ships and Dip Cruise, at the Bangkok International Festival of Music and Dance, at the Taranaki Arts Fest and the Dubbo Jazz Fest in New Zealand and Australia, the Jarasum Jazz Festival in South Korea, the Zacatecas Cultural Festival in Mexico, the Beijing Jazz Festival, and in India.
And all the while they’ve kept audiences excited, dancing and smiling as they built up a solid fan base that to this day will never forget the music and the antics…stopping traffic with the famous ‘Spadina Bus’ walk around, playing a Mingus tune and really meaning it, thrashing around the stage in crazy interpretive dance, delivering the classic poem ‘What do you Want.’
The band continues the tradition today with a great line-up of players that includes multiple Juno Award winner Richard Underhill – sax & vox, Matt Lagan – sax & vox, multiple Juno Award winner Kelly Jefferson – sax & vox, multiple Juno Award winner Mike Downes – bass & vox and Juno Award winner Stich Wynston – drums & vox. Expect the same exciting, no holds barred performances that feature wild romps in the crowd, free jazz moments, danceable funk, poetry, killer solos and more.
