Snarky Puppy

An American jazz fusion group combining jazz, rock and funk, Snarky Puppy was born in Denton, Texas, in 2004, on the initiative of bassist and conductor Michael League. Initially made up of a dozen musicians, the student collective, whose first name was The Farm, grew to forty as the group evolved. Their first album, The Only Constant, was released in 2006 on Sitmom Records, and featured contributions from Justin Timberlake, Roy Hargrove, Ari Hoenig and Snoop Dogg. It was followed by The World Is Getting Smaller (2007) and Bring Us the Bright (2008), before signing with Ropeadope Records for Tell Your Friends (2010), which won its first Grammy Award for the song "Something", performed by Lalah Hathaway. In 2012, the story accelerated for Snarky Puppy, who that year released the album GroundUP, which reached #14 on the Billboard jazz charts and gave its name to the band's label, before being the label of a festival founded in 2017. Meanwhile, Snarky Puppy collaborated with Burundian singer Bukuru Celestin on the album Amkeni (2013) and released Family Dinner - Volume One (No. 5) the same year, followed by the live recording We Like It Here (No. 4 in 2014), featuring keyboardist Cory Henry. Captured live with the Dutch big band Metropole Orkest, its successor Sylva (2015) reaches #1 and wins the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Album, while the studio album Family Dinner - Volume Two (2016), also #1 on the jazz charts, features Becca Stevens and Väsen, Susanna Baca and Charlie Hunter, Laura Mvula and Michelle Willis, Salif Keita, Jacob Collier and David Crosby, among others. A third Grammy Award goes to the following Culcha Vulcha (2016, No. 1 jazz), featuring former members of The Farm era. Following the launch of their festival, Snarky Puppy set about recordingImmigrance (2019, No. 2), followed by Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2020), which earned them a 4th Grammy Award. The Covid-19 pandemic interrupted the collective's activity, but they returned to the stage, releasing Live at GroundUP Music Festival in 2022 and the studio album Empire Central (#9 in the jazz charts), featuring Bernard Wright, who died on May 19, 2022. Snarky Puppy's 19-strong line-up included loyal members Bill Laurence and Shaun Martin (keyboards), Zach Brock (violin), Chris Bullock, Bob Reynolds (saxophone) and Mike Maher (trumpet). On August 3, 2024, Shaun Martin died at the age of 45.