Need a jolt, feel like dancing? Or just assurance the state of Latin Jazz is alive and well?"
(Jim Josselyn, ALL ABOUT JAZZ, about Bye-Ya!)

Bye-Ya! was founded by Jens Kerkhoff and Mick Paauwe in the beginning of 1999 with the idea to create a new combination of latin-music and jazz. The interaction and openness of jazz are mixed and integrated with exciting and swinging Latin-American and Afro-Cuban grooves. Complex harmonic accompaniment and exciting rhythms build up the basic for beautiful melodies and inspired improvisations – this is the formula of Bye-Ya!

Bye-Ya! is not just a project or pickup group assembled for a recording, it’s a band! A band that consists of the total of five different backgrounds, nationalities, characters, creative visions and musical evolutions which together make up the unique sound of Bye-Ya!

Bye-Ya! is Latin jazz at it's best – more than a mix between these two styles, it is interaction and reaction between latin music and jazz.