■ 09 January 2009 | 2:08 PM
"There's no such thing as hip hop jazz."
Well, I'm paraphrasing.
Next week, Wynton Marsalis and the rest of the Jazz at Lincoln Center gang comes to the Sandler Center for the Arts in Virginia Beach. In advance of this occasion, I spoke with a trombonist for the group,Vincent Gardner, a native of Tidewater who went to Bayside High (but graduated from Bethel in Hampton.)
Obviously, the man knows his jazz; he's played with JALC for eight years. He also knows a thing or two about hip hop music: he's performed with A Tribe Called Quest and toured with Lauryn Hill.
But back to me. I loved the hip hop jazz movement of the 1990s -- I still play A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, The Roots, all Guru's Jazzmatazz records; my copy of The Brand New Heavies "The Heavy Rhyme Experience" is a treasured personal artifact. I asked Vincent, 'How do jazz artists and hip hop artists differ in the way that they approach playing jazz?'
I was a little bit surprised by his answer.
"Hip hop artists don't play jazz," he said. "There's been no successful hip hop jazz collaboration that I've heard. The closest thing to it have been these albums by Russell Gunn called "Ethnomusicology." That might be the most successful that I've heard. Because it involves them being creative on the spot. Hip hop artists have their lyrics, and the track. They put the pieces together but they're not interacting in real time. That's what jazz is: interacting in real time. A guy plays a solo and leaves space for another musician to answer in real time. That happens spontaneously, and on the spot, and that can't happen in hip hop because of the way it's set up. That's why the hip hop jazz collaborations never really work. It's not what jazz is. It's not what hip hop is either."
He has his points, yes? Still, I'm not sure I'm prepared to think of my treasured records as "unsuccessful."
You?
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couldn't agree more
"He has his points, yes? Still, I'm not sure I'm prepared to think of my treasured records as "unsuccessful." You?"
I still have the Source article announcing Tribe's split.
Much of the new jazz stuff
Much of the new jazz stuff sounds like pop music, not that I have a problem with that.
And it used to be that hiphop music was about the DJ, the MC came second. Slicing out hooks from many records to keep the party going. The hook could be from any genre.
There is plenty of music, and it's impossible to shove everything into a specific genre. It makes cataloging and sorting the collection rough, but in the end just listen to it all and check off the songs you like, skip the ones you don't.
Mr. Gardner's comments ring
Mr. Gardner's comments ring true for much contemporary cerebral, abstract jazz but its roots weren't always so improvizational. Early New Orleans Jazz and the Swing era spawned many melodies and rhythms that are still instantly recognizable and get your foot tapping over 50 years later. The improvization was only on the solos and usually followed similar patterns. Those were days when jazz was an interactive, social celebration between men and women dancing in partnership. People would gather to hear the growl of a trombone or wail of Bechet's soprano sax and forget the troubles of the time.
All too often contemporary jazz likes to see itself as aloof and intellectually superior; however, if you listen to LCJO play Duke Ellington's "C Jam Blues" you remember the celebration of where jazz came from and realize, "it don't mean a thing if it don't have that swing".
Every once in a while a contemporary R&B or hip hop artist will hit a groove that does just that in a way that some abstract jazz artists can't find no matter how much they improvize and try to fit their solo component into everyone else's distinct part. Yeah, they're different, but the still have things they co
My opinion
Jazz is almost Spiritual. Calling Hip-Hop/Rap "music" is a Stretch.
Thats imagine this though
I agree with The Jazz artist wholeheartedly. He is absolutely correct.
However, lets imagine a group like this..... Christian Mcbride, Jack DeJohnette and Gonzalo Rubalcaba and then throw in some choice horn players. Then, to my mind the best poly-rhythmic Rap artists there are like Busta Rythmes and MC Solar as a second. If the hip-hop artists really studied up then it would be possible. It could be fantastic. Just look at great jazz vocalists in scat and free form and it could be a great experiment. What is clear is that the musicians tend to dummy down and play behind the MC in all the CD's you mentioned. However, if the MC treated his contribution as an instrument and could really free form then it could be hot
C'mon now...
I'm a huge fan of all those artists you listed... Planets, Tribe, etc, etc, but just because there's an upright bass, some horns, some Rhodes, vibes, and a rim shot doesn't mean it's anything like jazz. A solid groove played by jazz artists with rhyming over top of it, sure. But jazz? No.
Sure there are all the instruments, and the pocket "live" grooves those albums are laced with are very familiar sounding, heck even Ron Carter dropped the lines of some of our favorite Tribe "hits". But Gardner is right on with his points.
And I'll add that jazz is dynamic, organic and interactive. Not static, synthetic and rehearsed.
Sure there are and have been some artists out there that have truly tapped into the improvisational instrumental setting accompanied by straight freestyle off-the-cuff rhymes approach, and even pulled it off well in a live setting. But let's not get too loose with what we label as being "jazz".
Let's not be too quick to downplay America's first original music. A music and art form that has been embraced and admired by the entire rest of the world.
Instead, let it be known exactly what is jazz and how it works... where it came from and what it does, how it
There was US3 Cantaloop but
There was US3 Cantaloop but that was the rhyme over the pre-existing record. There was a LL Cool J unplugged episode where they used a live band . Of course there is freestyle rapping, but I guess it's true that it isn't an answer back in music form. I'd argue that a portion of Jazz is nothing but noise, pointless noodling with no return to a melody. One has to wonder if those downloaded albums are even worth keeping.
Finally...
someone that knows what the heck he's talking about. Back in the day, I heard that certain music was being labled "hip-hop jazz", and had to be had. When I checked it out, my thoughts were "It's was just NOISE!". The groups and tracks mentioned were what they were, but were certainly NOT JAZZ, by any stretch of the imagination!