Who, as a little boy, got Lionel Hampton’s mallets as a present, just has to become a world famous vibraphone player. It happened to Roy Ayers and this special event was to be the beginning of a career that proved to be more than just a career in jazz. The renowned jazz author and producer Leonard Feather discovered Ayers and produced his debut album West Coast Vibes. Soon after that flautist Herbie Mann asked him to join his band. Meanwhile Ayers kept writing his own material and in the mid-seventies he had become a leading musician in the fusion genre. Supported by the club scene he scored a couple of hits in Britain. In the eighties he founded Uno Melodic, his own record label. Today Roy Ayers is considered to be, and honoured as, one of the driving forces behind acid jazz.
