Level 42

The jazzy pop/funk of British band Level 42 earned them European chart success throughout the 1980s and into the '90s. Starting out as more of a jazz fusion group, they wound up moving definitively over to the pop/R&B side, with a smooth-jazz flavour setting them apart from other English R&B acts of the era. The band, propelled by the distinctive slap-bass work of leader Mark King, broke up in the mid-'90s, but by the start of the next decade, they were performing live again, and finally released an album of new material in 2006.

• pop