“Real music by real musicians” as Prince used to say. Just like Prince, the trumpet player Boney Fields is part of this generation of African-American musicians born to tame the stage.
So it is no coincidence that his playing partners are named Lucky Peterson, Luther Allison, James Cotton, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Johnson, Albert Collins, Bernard Allison, AC Reed, Liz Mc Comb, as well as Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley or Bootsy Collins are some of his recording sessions fellows.
Boney Fields faithfully merges Funk and Blues, the two sides of the same Great Black Music, and he does so with the skills acquired during a career spent playing on stages all over the world.
When this child of a Chicago-based large family started his career, he realized that he could have turned bad. But growing up lured both by the sirens of the ghetto and the Gospel songs praised by his parents, Boney Fields chose a unique voice, his own, that he enhanced with the practice of an instrument, the trumpet. The two-fold talent of this singer/trumpet player propelled him from one session to the next alongside those legends. He accompanies them in studio sessions or on stage and additionally composes – during his “spare” time- complex arrangements for brass
sections like those of Tower of Power or Earth Wind and Fire.
"Nothing beats the pleasure that you get from being in front of a crowd surrounded by your band, making music together."
- Boney Fields -
Far from Tinseltown glitz and glam, it is on stage that Boney Fields learned the profession and enriched his artistry. The tours are long, the roads not always paved with gold. No matter the lack of sleep or number of miles traveled, being on stage is the only thing Boney Fields lives for.
And the stage is where he finally carved his own style, a retro-futuristic mix of Blues and Brass Funk. A genuine aesthetics that he deploys on records as well as on stages with his own band, an explosive septet who mastered the magical formula of the groove of the origins long ago. Everywhere they go Boney Fields & his Band leave like a highly energetic and exhilarating streak of powder.
A relentless showman, Boney Fields makes his music travel in each and every corner of the planet when invited to prestigious festivals such as Jazz à Vienne, Jazz in Marciac, Madajazzcar, Tabarka Jazz Festival… It is during these shows that he perfected the vibrant repertoire of his 7 albums with his own collective of musicians.
And it is on those same stages that one will have to come and see him play his new collection of “real“ songs performed, as Prince used to say, “by real musicians”.
