URBAN KNIGHTS IS:
RAMSEY LEWIS: PIANO & KEYBOARDS
GROVER WASHINGTON, JR: SOPRANO SAX
VICTOR BAILEY: BASS
JONATHAN BUTLER: GUITAR
OMAR HAKIM: DRUMS
www.enotes.com/...
The Urban Knights is an all-star smooth, soul and R&B jazz band which features one of the jazz greats, pianist Ramsey Lewis. Their first self-titled debut album in 1995 included prominent musicians Grover Washington, Jr., Omar Hakim, Victor Bailey and the Emotions to name a few. Other great musicians have collaborated throughout the years with the Urban Knights such as Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire), saxophonists Gerald Albright, Najee, Kenny Garrett and Dave Koz, guitarists Jonathan Butler, Norman Brown, Earl Klugh, Bobby Broom and Fareed Haque. In 2000, Urban Knights III, was the supergroup's first album for the Narada label out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Grover Washington, Jr. (December 12, 1943 - December 17, 1999)[1] was an American jazz-funk / soul-jazz saxophonist. Along with George Benson, John Klemmer, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chuck Mangione, Herb Alpert, and Spyro Gyra, he is considered by many to be one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre.[citation needed] He wrote some of his material and later became an arranger and producer.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Washington made some of the genre's most memorable hits, including "Mister Magic," "Reed Seed," "Black Frost," "Winelight," "Inner City Blues" and "The Best is Yet to Come". In addition, he performed very frequently with other artists, including Bill Withers on "Just the Two of Us" (still in regular rotation on radio today), Patti LaBelle on "The Best Is Yet to Come" and Phyllis Hyman on "A Sacred Kind of Love". He is also remembered for his take on the Dave Brubeck classic "Take Five", and for his 1996 version of "Soulful Strut".
Washington had a preference for black nickel-plated saxophones made by Julius Keilwerth. These included a SX90R alto and SX90R tenor. He also played Selmer Mark VI alto in the early years. His main soprano was a black nickel plated H.Couf Superba II (also built by Keilwerth for Herbert Couf) and a Keilwerth SX90 in the last years of his life.