Yamaha’s Groove All Stars show is always eagerly anticipated when staged at the NAMM show in California so bringing the whole event to Europe was a big deal and I felt really fortunate to have been a part of it all.

The format was the same as usual, a bunch of Yamaha drum endorsees each playing one song with the regular Groove Night house band (LA and New York session players including legendary bass player Neil Stubenhaus) and a fantastic elite German horn section
Performing alongside well known Yamaha artists such as Rick Marotta, J.R. Robinson, Akiro Jimbo, Tommy Aldridge, Andy Newmark and Tom Brechtlein were a number of extremely talented European Yamaha endorsees…..

Predo Barcello (Spain) • Bruno Castellucci (Belgium) •Dimitris Christodoulakis (Greece)
Michal Darbrowka (Poland) • Soren Frost (Denmark) • Ralf Gustke (Germany)
Wolfgang Haffner (Germany) •Arthur Hnatek (Switzerland) • Oscar Kraal (Netherlands)
Christian Meyer (Italy) • Volkan Oktem (Turkey) • Loic Pontieaux (France)
Eric Smith (Norway) • Martin Valihora (Slovakia)

It was a great night and I thoroughly enjoyed all the drummers on show. J.R. Robinson is one of my heroes (I spent a large chunk of my teens listening to his performances on record) Akiro Jimbo with the band ‘Caseopia’ was another contributor to my drumming education.

Tommy Aldridge was a powerhouse as expected while Brechtlein, Marotta and Newmark were their usual high-calibre selves. Also, I really want to mention a few of the European guys whose names may not be so familiar....

Loic Pontieaux (a monster groove and a really nice guy), Arthur Hnatek (only 17 years old and a simply incredible player), Michal Darbrowka (played a killer version of ‘Sledgehammer’), Andy Newmark (legend), Wolfgang Hafner (again a great pocket, really tasty) and Oscar Kraal (who performed a fantastic tribute to Tower Of Power)