Jay Heye - Smooth & Easy (2024)

Jay Heye aka Jan-Heie Erchinger has been the regular keyboardist at Jazzkantine since it was founded in 1994. His style there is characterized above all by quiet Rhodes pads and loud and precise funk patterns on the Hohner Clavinet, in close coordination with the drums of his brother Dirk Erchinger.

D-Phunk, or Deutschland-Phunk, is a band formed in 1997 by brothers Dirk and Jan-Heie Erchinger, D-Phunk Musik is their production company. Their repertoire ranges from black music (Reggie Worthy, Denise M’Baye) to their own jazz solo CDs and jazz audio books. The audio book with actor Rolf Zacher (Rolf trifft Zacher vs. D-Phunk), for example, received a 5-star rating in Rolling Stone.

He also performed with Bahama Soul Club, a bossanova funk band led by producer Oliver Belz and singer Pat Appleton from DePhazz. The band emerged from the JuJu Orchestra and has already had several releases, including on the Brazilectro samplers.

Together with Curtis McLaw he is a member of Blue Knights releasing several smooth jazz albums.

His newest project is the album Smooth & Easy (2024).