»A blend of infectious influences of American R&B, soul, funk, disco and other high-energy sounds, merged with Bluey’s multicultural sensibilities. Beats steep in jazz that are vibrant by nature and mellow when they want to be. Incognito’s rock-solid reputation rides the wave of human emotion since the late 1970s.« Jazzreview

Anyone paying attention to the upper echelon of soul music´s ever changing face knows the name Incognito. More than the moniker of a great band, Incognito is a brand—a guaranteed one-stop for sophisticated, uplifting U.K.-spun soul-jazz, stamped by a cavalcade of top-notch vocal talent, sweeping arrangements for rhythm section, horns and strings, substance-fueled lyrical content and the unflagging leadership of guitarist/songwriter Jean-Paul Maunick, affectionately known as "Bluey."

Over a 27-year career, London-based Mobo Award winners Incognito made stateside strides with both dreamy urban adult/Quiet Storm fare such as "Deep Waters" and "Still a Friend of Mine," as well as jazzy horn-kissed club jams like "Everyday" and a cover of the Ronnie Laws/Side Effect classic "Always There." Fans will be glad to know that all four of those songs can be found on their latest album, Bees + Things + Flowers—only they´ll sound nothing like the arrangements to which they´ve grown accustomed.

"It was time for me to break away from making records the way I was doing them," the man called Bluey affirmatively states. "A bit of a formula was creeping in. It was time to put a stick in the spoke!" This departure marks an artistic spike in the canon of Incognito with the largely acoustic and meditatively down-tempo Bees + Things + Flowers, the band´s first album affiliated with hallowed jazz giants Blue Note Records via Narada Jazz.

The CD’s intriguing title stems from the impressionistic, Haiku-like lyrics of Acid Jazz godfather Roy Ayers´ summer of `76 classic "Everybody Loves the Sunshine," the song with which Incognito opens its spellbinding new album. Regarding the title, Bluey comments, "I was looking for something that said ´new beginning´ or ´circle of life,´ but didn´t want to be so obvious about it. Then Roy´s words hit me - bees and flowers - that´s the circle of life right there! What hipper way to say it? We´re making a statement with this record. "By revisiting our own songs, our borrowed songs plus a few new songs, we´re showing that music isn´t one dimensional." Fittingly, Bees + Things + Flowers was conceived and recorded over the summer of 2006. Bluey composed the first two new songs, "You Are Golden" and "Raise" on his acoustic guitar lounging poolside in the serenity of Bali. The former was later recorded pretty much as conceived while the latter was flipped into a turbulent drum and bass scorcher.

However, the crux of the album came when Bluey and keyboardist Matt Cooper sat down and wrote another new song called "Crave"... in all of 20 minutes. "We were looking for a piano, but one wasn´t available, so we used a Fender Rhodes electric piano. Right then, I ditched the idea of this being an all-acoustic record. The warmth of that sound became the framework for the entire CD. I was also considering using an amplified acoustic bass guitar. But two nights before the session, I was listening to Bill Withers´ Live at Carnegie Hall and it brought me to another quick conclusion—I could use electric bass in this context. Nice."

Once the new songs were in place, Bluey selected four key cover songs to include: John Sebastian´s "Summer in the City" (with nods to the balmy arrangement Quincy Jones later recorded as well as a string arrangement that mirrors the dark, off-minor work of David Axelrod), America´s "Tin Man," Earth Wind & Fire´s "That´s Way of the World" and the aforementioned Roy Ayers track. "All of that `70s music was my ´inspiration information´ growing up," Bluey shares, “a time of purity when we as people were allowed to be children, take chances and experiment."