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Jamiroquai's latest album, Travelling Without Moving, which is released this month, is the band's third, and couples their brand of summer's day funk with more sophisticated arrangements and songwriting than their two previous albums. The influences are clearly jazz-funk masters of the Seventies-- Don Blackman, Johnny Hammond, Roy Ayers-- but there is a modernity and freshness to the album which somehow gives it greater range and scope than the band's work to date. Kay is convinced, in his infectiously enthusiastic and ambitious way, that the band are staking out new territory.

Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Motown 1973)

I think the first tracks that really hit me were Higher Ground and Golden Lady. I had never heard music that combined so many different elements... the rocky guitar, the clavinet, the weird synthesizers. This was what turned me on to the central core of our sound today. But I still don't know where people got all that stuff about me sounding like Stevie Wonder. Blaack vocies and white voices are very different. And hee's a much bigger guy. I stood next to Stevie Wonder once, and he was fucking huge.

Bob Marley & The Wailers: Natty Dead (Polygram 1975)

I'm noticing that most of these records were actually in the same room, and literally played one after the other. It must have been the same trip, and I turned into a black man. The magic about this album is the way he uses those backing singers, and the notes they hit behind him. You dream about having backing singers like that. Like most of these records, I got into this when I was about 17, when you really shape your outlook, so it's affected everything. if I'd been brought up with Kajagoogoo and Tight Fit things might have been different.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced (MCA 1967)

I remember sitting and being on a trip and not being in a good mood, which is rare for me, and listening to this and it all capturing that experience. Everybody loves this album, don't they? It's raw energy. It's Jimi. It's manic depression. It's very improvised, which I'm into. His drummer was a jazz drummer, that was the beauty of it. And what I love was that here was a black guy and two white guys in the backing band, and the white guys were British.

Roy Ayers Ubiquity: Everybody Loves The Sunshine (Polygram 1976)

I think Roy Ayers makes jazz understandable for people who are not into Thelonious Monk and Coltrane and stuff. I mean I'm not a trained musician, I do everything by vocals and by ear, and so he brought all that stuff into focus for me. And he's the master of the vibraphone. And Everybody Loves The Sunshine is just the living summer track. It's the real leviathan of that age - the fusion of dope-smoking fucking jazzers. It's Central Park on a hot evening. I met him briefly. There was him and Donald Byrd: "Er, er, I just want to say, er, er, I love you, Ray".

The Sounds Of Goodwood (Free With Motorsport Magazine 1999)
"The Rummest Record I Own"

Actually, it was a photo-finish with Jean Michel Jarre's Zoolock, which is an album that is very atmospheric and I love. But it must be my Sounds Of Goodwood. It's the sound of old '50s and '60s racing cars. There's an even better one, from Le Mans. It's like the sound of distance and I love it. I never liked cartoons as a child except Roadrunner. Remember that "Beepbeep! Neeeooooogh!"? I love that sense of speed. And listen mate, let me tell you: Ferraris are aural magic. They are music. OK, happy?

Donald Byrd: Places & Spaces (Blue Note 1975)

You don't know this? Fuck, man! Fuck! (paces around and mimes punching the interviewer). Donald Byrd is another one of these people, like Johnny Hammond, Roy Ayers... it's jazz in an understandable form. It has suck freedom, unusual arrangements, really funky changes, and it moves along. That's what I like, music that rolls along. To do music with that tempo and make it boogieable, it's about where they haven't played notees - the spaces. That's what they're masters of. They're masters of the groove.

Earth, Wind & Fire: I Am (Columbia 1979)

It could have been Rays. But it's I AM, and I'll tell you why. Because Boogie Wonderland is just the consummate disco track. I love the philosophy that's placed across the music... the stars and sun and planets and Egyptians. That very '70s awakening in America, everybody doing their thing and wannting to smoke pot and take drugs. I watched one of their live shows in the States and it was unbelieeeeeeeevable. I just watched it and thought, Oh, OK then, I'll become a producer.

Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (Motown 1978)

It doesn't quite get you first time. And a lot of songs are quite similarly paced. It's almost like the same song being subtly changed ten differennt ways. A lot of it, lyrically, is about the break-up of his relationship. There's a track called Anger, which is lyrically really brilliant; and there's a track called Time To Get It Together using, a think, a marimba, and it's just dreamy and lovely. He was a deep man at the time, but I think the charlie was eating him up. It's all about struggling and fighting, and you can feel it. Look (pointing at his forearm) it makes the hairs stand right up.

Sly & The Family Stone: Stand! (Epic 1969)

For just the sheer comical, clown-type funkinness of it. It's got roots in doo-wop, which you can hear. And the fact that it's a family; and those brilliant black voices. And also the sketchiness of it. The way people are out of time and the volume's so uneven. The end of Stand! is the biz; it just stands out as one of the funkiest moments. To me it just epitomises B-Boy funk, hip hop funk, miles before its time.

Pleasure: The Best Of Pleasure (Fantasy 1992)
"The One Record I Couldn't Live Without"

Have you heard any Pleasure? Have you had the Pleeasure? Again, I first listened to this when I was about 16 or 17. At that time I was really just finding my feet and turning over what I wanted to do,a nd this music is so fucking funky. The guitar solo on Joyous is the best, most precise, most rounded, fullbodied solo, with a beginning, middle and end, that I've heard. At the time bands like Pleasure were very much eclipsed by groups like Tower Of Power. But forget Tower Of Power, honestly. Bouncy Lady, Joyous, Glide, Pleasure For Your Pleasure, they're just unreal.

JAMIROQUAI's 24-year-old Jason Kay (aka Jay Kay) was brought up in Ealing, West London, by his jazz-singer mother, Karen Kay. Inspired by the likes of Sly Stone, Roy Ayers and Gil Scott-Heron, he formed his now sucessful jazz-funk band.

I came up whith this tune the other day, but when we played it, it turned into 'Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing'. I wouldn't keep anything like that. What people misunderstand is that my key, tune and register just happen to similar to Stevie Wonder's. It's not just that I sing like him or even sound like him. It's just that we go for the same notes. I could sing most Stevie Wonder tunes comfortably. Big deal. What are you trying to say? Tha no one's ever going to sound anything like Stevie did again? It's 50 years or whatever since the guy was born. You think that someone else might come along who likes doing that music well? Probably. There;s only five billion of us on the planet."

Journalists were so nice at the start and then it all went horribly wrong. The Stevie Wonder thing came out of nowhere and has been going since. All because one guy said I sounded a bit like him. From then on, I was supposed to be the wanker who based his whole career on Stevie Wonder. I was the guy who got an easy ride just because I was white. People who say that are fuckin' idiots who don't know what they're talking about. They're not me, they don't know what I've done. I had to go out and do all sorts of wierd and wonderful, dangerous things to get my start. I had to break the law and be a fuckin' little criminal. I didn't wanaa do those things. It certainly wasn't easy.

The problem is that the press conjure up this image of who you should be and try to make you fit into it. They can't make me fit and so they slag me off. They don't know what it's like trying to keep a leash on something that can easily run away. I only have to walk out the studio for one hour and what I left behind as a potential Marvin Gaye's bloody 'I Want You' has become fuckin' Mr Blobby. I have to be careful all the time. I don't need all this Stevie Wonder shit. I've got better things to think about. Sure, I'm big-mouthed Jay who's got a big fuckin' gob. But so what?

In Japan they are on the money, constantly changing the songs, refining them, funking them up, chopping them down, shaping the new tracks, but all the while firing with almost obsessive passion about the music. "The music, man, the music." It's all they talk about. "We're learning together," says Jay, backstage before one show amid all the sandwiches, beers and admirers. "I find a lot of older musicians are over the hill, there's no roughness, they're smooth. It's false. 'Cos I'm not a top boy myself they wouldn't suit me, wouldn't suit my voice. I'm not Stevie Wonder or Aretha Franklin, Stewart's not Bootsy Collins and Toby's not Herbie Hancock."

The end result is two encores and a cover version of Larry Young Experience's rare groove classic "Turn Off The Lights" that packs so much raw, angry, young funk that the sheer animal excitement of the place has women clutching their hands to their heads and more than ever trying to make it backstage.

"Y'know, we hoped to get Quincy Jones to help on some of this album. He didn't in the end, so we just took his ideas and did it ourselves anyway - that's why the 'Canned Heat' has that string arrangement. And when Maurice White came backstage at one of gigs and told us he thought we were brilliant, I told him, 'Well, actually, we're just trying to copy you'. Earth, Wind & Fire - now that's what I call music."

Marvin Gaye, "I want you" (Tamla, 1976)
Just beautiful. And very natural in terms of vibe and musicality. "After the Dance" is a perfect ballad.

Roy Ayers, "Evolotion" (Polydor, 1995)
This two-CD box set by my favorite funky vibes player is filled with rare '70s tracks like "Everybody Loves the Sunshine." Smooth keyboard sound and sassy vocals.

Donald Byrd, "Places and Spaces" (Blue Note, 1975)
I've been influenced by Donald and his funky trumpet for quite some time. Jazz-pop with great synthesizers. This is one of my all-time favorites.

Fatback, "Hot Box" (Disco Classics, 1980)
So delicious. This is one of the best albums of the early '80s: The musical content is amazingly original; so are the vocals and the horn lines. Check out "Backstrokin."

Herbie Hancock, "Headhunters" (Columbia, 1974)
The keyboard sounds are intense and the musicians are brilliant. This is very spacious funk. "Watermelon Man" and "Chameleon"-- what else can you ask for?

Ramsey Lewis, "Sun Goddess" (Columbia, 1974)
Very influential record by an incredible keyboardist. Earth, Wind and Fire played on a few tracks. I especially like "Hot Dawgit."

Bernard Herrmann, "Taxi Driver" (1976)
I've always been a big fan of funky film music. This is one of my favorites. It's got the best sax solo going.

Patrice Rushen, "Straight from the Heart" (Elektra, 1982)
Her voice, particualarly on "I Was Tired of Being Alone," has amazed me since the early '80s.

Stevie Wonder, "Innervisions" (Motown, 1973)
Need I say more?

Another sore point has been the suggestion that Kay has somehow ripped off black music. In particular, I wonder how he feels about the constant comparisons of his voice with that of Stevie Wonder. "On one level it is flattering but it would be nice to be recognised in my own right," he says. "We are very different. Stevie has a much better voice than me. He can play everything and I can't play anything. But he paid me a great compliment when I met him. He said 'hey, great song', and started singing Virtual Insanity. I was in tears about that. The great man himself said it was all right, which was nice after years of being told I was plagarising his music."

Having their own studio is going to transform the way Jamiroquai works, says Kay. "This will be the best album we have done; we never used to get a chance to rehearse properly. We can become much more prolific. We can touch on different styles of music. We're looking to get people to come down to stay with us and work on the album. It's going to be tighter and rockier and funkier with some light jazzy sweet stuff. I hope Quincy Jones and Roy Ayers are going to work with us."

"My mom was an incredibly talented woman who played on the same stage in Hamburg as the Beatles when she was 17," says Kay, who was raised by his mother when his parents split soon after his birth.
"She was into quality music and I grew up hearing . . . the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Dinah Washington. But she also suffered at the hands of [businessmen] who spent all her money."

"Besides we never tried to hide our influences. When we first started doing interviews, I went on and on about how much I loved 'Innervisions' and how Stevie Wonder was my hero. So what happens? Next thing I'm reading this magazine and it says this kid thinks he's the new Stevie Wonder."