The Soul Enterprise is often described as more of a fraternity than a band per se. It was founded in 1990, by vocalist Bob Manning

Bob Manning

Bob Manning is a vocalist now living in Minnesota, United States.Bob began singing Gospel as a child in Virginia, U.S., and followed a stage career to New York City where he worked with among others: Gladys Knight, James Brown, Bo Diddley, Dick Clark, The Coasters and later The Four Tops.Living in...

 from the USA, with other American musicians based in Sweden, such as Jair-Rohm Parker Wells

Jair-Rohm Parker Wells

Jair-Rôhm Parker Wells is an American free jazz bassist , composer and conceptualist. He is one of the founding members of the improvising band Machine Gun which featured Thomas Chapin...

 and Bill Bryant. It featured the sounds of old-school Soul music, with a blend of jazz improvisation.

In the beginning years, the group's founding members were busy freelancing for other acts besides the Soul Enterprise, such as Dr. Alban

Dr. Alban

Alban Uzoma Nwapa , known by his stage name Dr. Alban, is a Nigerian, Sweden-based musician and producer with his own record label dr-records. His music can best be described as a Eurodance/hip-hop reggae with a dancehall style. He is most famous for his worldwide 1992 hit "It's My...

 and Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown is a Swedish singer. She was born in Hjällbo, northeast of Gothenburg.When she moved to Stockholm in the 1990s, she started working as a phone receptionist for influential Swedish record label Telegram records and this eventually led to a record deal...

. A period of instability followed, with many different substitute musicians playing in the band. The group went through major reforms and a complete change of members followed under the leadership of guitarist Zak Keith

Zak Keith

Zak Keith is a British multi-genred guitarist, based in Stockholm, Sweden since 1988. He was band leader for Bob Manning's Soul Enterprise from 1992-2001. Active internationally, he has performed with artists such as Julius E...

 in 1992. The new line-up of first-call musicians included some of Stockholm's best, many considered to be world-class musicians, such as Morgan Ågren

Morgan Ågren

Morgan Ågren is a Swedish drummer who plays with the progressive rock band Kaipa.A native of Umeå, Norrland, Morgan Ågren was spotted as an outstanding talent at a young age as he began performing publicly at age seven, and eventually joined forces with Mats Öberg in 1981.They later formed...

 (drums), Anders Johnsson (bass), Micke Wennergrund (drums), Lasse Pollack (keyboards), Magnus Lindgren

Magnus Lindgren

Magnus Lindgren is a Swedish jazz musician. He studied at the Västerås Music College. He then attended the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm, Sweden, and began working with the Soul Enterprise. He began playing with Herbie Hancock at age 18, and formed his current quartet in 1997...

 (Saxophone), Micke Sörensen (trumpet), Mia Gejrot, Anna Sandberg-Häll and Tonja Hedtjärn (voc). Magnus Lindgren went on to play with Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

 at age 18; Micke Sörensen went on to work with former Supremes member Mary Wilson

Mary Wilson (singer)

Mary Wilson is an American singer, formerlymember of the Motown female singing group The Supremes during the 1960s and 1970s. Wilson was the only singer to be a consistent member of the group in its eighteen-year tenure...

. Lasse Pollack toured with Glenn Hughes in Japan.

The Soul Enterprise was voted best Soul band of Scandinavia by Fasching Jazz Club in 1998. Dagens Nyheter

Dagens Nyheter

is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It has the largest circulation of Swedish morning newspapers, followed by Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet, and is the only morning newspaper that is distributed to subscribers across the whole country. In 2009 DN had a circulation of 316,000, reaching 881...

(a major Swedish newspaper) credited Bob Manning and the Soul Enterprise as a major influence in keeping Soul music alive in Scandinavia. Its musicians work as sessionists and have appeared on numerous records, together and individually.

Discography

• Dance Beat, Shine On You, EMI Dancebeat Records, 1996
• Scrappy G, Mobbin Trow da City, MCA Music Entertainment, 1996
• André De Lange, A Friend, BIEM/NCB/GEMA, 1996
• Jazz On The Corner, Various Artists, Arietta Disks Musikprod. AB, 1995
• Chicago Express, Permanently Blue, Amigo Musik, 1995
• Totally Wired, Sweden, Soul Sister, Acid Jazz, 1994
• Blue Connection, Live at Clipper Club, Dragon Records Sweden, 1993
• All That Blues, From Sweden, Jefferson Rec, 1993
• En Blå Timme, That's Entertainment, TER Records 1993