music lovers...

[Gamma]

anyone on here into acid jazz? if so can you recommend some groups...

brooklyn funk essentials, thievery corporation i know about...

[Historian]

Well, Well, Well....

anyone on here into acid jazz? if so can you recommend some groups...

brooklyn funk essentials, thievery corporation i know about...

Gamma, you never fail to surprise me, boss !!

The truth is that while jazz, with its total creativity, is my favorite of all genres, I tend to look at the combination of jazz and hip hop as like an oxymoron. They just are so opposite in terms of melodic and harmonic creativity (lol)!! But you did not ask about this, so….

In response to your question, while I know about the existence of acid jazz, it’s difficult for me to identify any groups right now that we could class within this genre. I would have to give this some thought. However, I can remember often seeing a trio on either BET or MTV back in the early or mid-1990s called Digable Planets (two guys and an attractive young girl with whom I almost fell in love). With their acoustic small band sound (I still remember that fat Chinese-looking guy swinging on acoustic bass), their obvious blend of jazz and hip hop would seem to fit this label. The video I’m referring to, and which I liked so much that I videotaped it, is “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”.

There are also guitarists like Paul Jackson, Jr. (the guy who I feel is the most recorded studio guitar player in history), but I’m not sure if experts would regard the instrumental contemporary jazz of people like Paul Jackson to be acid jazz.

Personally speaking, while I know that I have listened to acid jazz (I just cannot place any groups right now), my personal preference (by far!!) is what was known in the 1970s and 1980s as “jazz fusion”; that is, a combination of jazz and rock (with some funk sometimes thrown in) that groups like Joe Zawinul’s famous Weather Report (especially the version of Weather Report which had that late genius of the bass, Jaco Pastorious), Chic Corea’s group Return to Forever, John McClaughlin’s The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jean Luc-Ponty and his various groups, and so on. Even those session musicians who recorded as Toto (remember Rosanna and Africa?) dipped into some elements of jazz fusion. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, while not really jazz fusion, is one group I spent long hours listening to back in the 1970s.

Anyway, you did not ask about jazz fusion (lol)! Forgive my reminiscing; it always seems to happen when the topic of music comes up .

[Gamma]

i have that album by digable planets ALL the tracks on it are EXCELLENT every single one...the album is called Reachin: A New Refutation of Time And Space.

i will check out the fusion jazz stuff. if you can, give a listen to the groups i mentioned

[Runawaybay]

check these out. United Future Organization, Brand New Heavies, D'Influence, Ronny Jordan, Young Disciples, Swing Out Sister, US3. Enjoy.

[Runawaybay]

Also add Incognito (also material from lead singer Maysa Leak), Donnie (has a great song called cloud 9), Courtney Pine (does jazz, some reggae), Soul 2 Soul ( had some good stuff even after they were not making hits)

[Assasin]

always like the brand new heavies, Soul to Soul etc. but to be frank the term acid Jazz is new to me.

[Gamma]

ok...i have 3 swing out sister albums, 1 us3 and 1 brand new heavies...thanks for the rest!

[Gamma]

brand new heavies rocke..i got into them because of the song "dream on dreamer" and their rendition of "midnight at the oasis" and "mind trips"....

[Historian]

I Will

i have that album by digable planets ALL the tracks on it are EXCELLENT every single one...the album is called Reachin: A New Refutation of Time And Space.

i will check out the fusion jazz stuff. if you can, give a listen to the groups i mentioned

Gamma, I’m going to try and get that Digable Planets album. I will definitely also listen to the examples you gave.

In the case of jazz fusion, a good starting place might be Weather Report’s excellent version of “Birdland.” I use the word “version” carefully here, as Weather Report’s leader Joe Zawinul is the composer of that jazz classic. Zawinul composed “Birdland” while he was keyboardist for Cannonball Adderley’s jazz group back in the 1960s.

If you go to YouTube, check for the live version.

[Gamma]

i have multiple courtney pine, children of the ghetto, don't xplain, sights in the city, i've know rivers.... soul2soul we know and love (

the reggae philharmonic had a nice song called "danglin'" and a rendition of "minnie the moocher"

[Gamma]

it was a tribute to charlie parker, wasn't it? or was it charlie parker's composition?

[Historian]

Some Corrections

it was a tribute to charlie parker, wasn't it? or was it charlie parker's composition?

Gamma, I’ve given you a bit of wrong information!

The composer is correct, as it was indeed Joe Zawinul who composed “Birdland”. Also, I can understand you making the connection with Charlie Parker through the word “Bird”, but I have no idea if it was a tribute to Charlie “Bird” Parker.

The wrong information I gave you is that Zawinual composed it while he was with Cannonball Adderley! That is incorrect on my part. Zawinul composed “Birdland” for his own band Weather Report (I own the CD copy of Weather Report’s excellent late-1970s album on which this tune appears, “Heavy Weather”).

My mind is a bit drained right now, but I think the association with Cannonball Adderley came from the song “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Me” which, if my memory is correct, Joe Zawinul composed for the Cannonball Adderley group while he (Zawinul) was keyboardist with the group back in the 1960s. Zawinual, by the way, was an Austrian-born American (he died a couple of years ago).

[Gamma]

it was named after a club in ny and the club was named in honour of bird.