8WD (Eight Wheel Drive) (Germany)

Many years of joint work in Monchengladbach link the ten musicians from 8WD (Eight Wheel Drive), known as the “local heroes” back home.

Already their first sounds enflame audiences. The sparks are rooted way back in the beat generation of the 1960s, when Wolfgang ‘Pannas’ Dannecker (piano and vocals), Willie Bergen (bass) and Wolfgang ‘Dufte’ Albers (guitar) discovered the magic of music for themselves.

Manni Schmelzer (trombone) started out as a street jazz musician. Multi-instrumentalist René Pütz (percussion) is a graduate musician, and the name of Pete Brough (guitar) is one that is part of the biography of groups such as Wallen- stein, 12DD and Dead Guitars. Trumpet player Jos Wetzels, in turn, is a pupils of Rüdiger Baldauf and his colleague Clive Fenton started his music career with the British MYJO Big Band and has delighted his fans all across Europe as an Old-time jazz musician with Rod Mason Hot Five.

What these so different musicians have in common is that each of them is adept at his craft, pushing 8WD full of energy on the road of the eight wheels, sorry ... instruments.

Watch video: 8WD (Eight Wheel Drive) - Love to You, Bansko Jazz Festival 2010