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The RB Funkestra (short for Redtenbacher's Blue Funkestra) was born in 1995 during Stefan Redtenbacher's studies at Berklee College of Music. Live performances culminated into his first album RB Funkestra - 'Boozing Wizards - Searching for the Stone of Funk', recorded with members of the Berklee faculty and the hottest funk players around Berklee at that time.

After graduating at Berklee College of music in 1996 Stefan re-located to London where he formed a British based 9 piece Funkestra and recorded new demos featuring Taka Boom, younger sister of Chaka Khan. Running a 9 piece band for a newcomer in town proved to be very difficult and Stefan focused instead on establishing himself as a bassist for other bands and artists.

After successful groundwork as a working musician he started to work on the follow up recording in 2000. In 2004 he finally released the much acclaimed Redtenbacher's Funkestra -'Falling from Insanity' (see press quotes), featuring 30 musicians, amongst them Fred Wesley, funk trombonist legend and former MD of James Brown. The Dutch record label Schoots offered Stefan their promotional channels and a performance on the main stage at the European Bass day 2005 in Viersen, Germany.

Other performance opportunities arouse and the RB Funkestra reformed as a quintet, playing Stefan's arrangements of the last two records and the two to come. Currently they are working on an album called RB Funkestra 'Redtenbacher's Hausmusik', a very upbeat party record. Furthermore the quintet is rehearsing and performing new arrangements for a live-studio recording; the band will perform all arrangements live in the studio with no overdubs and multi-tracking to capture the infectious groove playing of the quintet. This record will be called Redtenbacher's Funkestra 'The Concubine Chronicles' and will have a distinct 'JB with a jazzy top hat feel' to it.