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Daniel Grau has recorded nine legendary LPs between 1974 and 1983; all of them never available outside of Venezuela though. Born 1950 in Caracas the thoroughbred musician first and foremost was one of the most sought-after studio engineers in his country. Almost any respectable artist in Venezuela (Vytas Brenner, Aldemaro Romero, Aditus, La Misma Gente etc.) was at least once in the Studio taking advantage of Daniel Grau's mastery.
Just for the fun of it Grau asked some of the musicians who frequented the studio on a regular basis to use the free studio time to record some own songs and compositions under the name of “La Orquestra De Daniel Grau”. The fist two albums from 1974 and 1976, released under this moniker, already display perfectly what an adept composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass and keyboards) Grau was and still is. The influences and references, which characterize his entire, short and Venezuela-only career, are unmistakeable: North American Fusion Jazz, orchestral Bossa Nova and Latin American funk in the sense of Eumir Deodato and Sérgio Mendes.

Daniel Grau's variety of musical styles doesn't end here though. At the end of the 1970's he moved more and more towards disco music and incorporated what we today all call Cosmic Disco. And it's exactly this scene, which started to become a worldwide movement about ten years ago, which embraces now the forgotten work by Grau and numbers his nine albums among the “holy grails” of this genre. Jazzanova member Claas Brieler was aware of this when he visited Caracas in 2012 as part of the cultural exchange programme by the prestigious Goethe Institute. Together with befriended Venezuelan DJ Trujillo all the stops were pulled to make Daniel Grau's music accessible to a worldwide audience.

In close dialogue with the by-now 64-years-old Daniel Grau the show case compilation at hand was compiled. As a CD release it encompasses 27 of the best tracks out of Grau's archive. The vinyl edition confines itself over two LPs to the 15 tracks that are the most danceable. On both formats you find a new composition (“To Night”). More than thirty years after his last official release Daniel Grau returns with “To Night” and looks ahead confidently.

Sonar Kollektiv now releases “The Magic Sound Of Daniel Grau – compiled by Jazzanova & Trujillo” as a double CD, double vinyl and as a digital download. All songs were restored by Calyx Mastering in Berlin. The compilation is packaged in a magic design by internationally renowned and Latin Grammy award winning, Venezuelan artist MASA.

It's a phenomenon of our time: Musicians who fell into oblivion already during their productive period, achieve unexpected worldwide success decades later. Similar things could happen to Daniel Grau. Thanks to Jazzanova (with great assistance by Trujillo) which supports the highly gifted South American studio whiz to establish his breakthrough 30 years after his last release.

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