Is jazz dead? There is a point in my life when I would have answered with an affirmative, yes. That was a lifetime ago. My repertoire has since blossomed out of my raised-on-radio-rock larval phase, leaving behind the withered husk of a Foo Fighters t and a stack of Punk-O-Rama comps to gather dust in a basement somewhere. The album that got me out of my pupa stage and ushered me into the exotic wilderness of jazz was Herbie Handcock's Headhunters. I had never heard anything so weird, willful and obtuse. I thought that rubbery, alien synth groove on the opening track "Chameleon," was punk as fuck back in college, and it still impresses me with its audaciousness to this day. In the years since I've discovered the idiosyncrasies as well as the beauty of John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Archie Shepp, as well as modern masters like Jeff Parker and Angel Bat Dawid. Each, in turn, opened my mind and provided me with new shelf space inside my head where I can place and inspect new and fantastic ideas. It's quite literally expanded my consciousness. Is jazz responsible for my late in life turn towards more far left politics? I can't say for sure, but it certainly hasn't been a deterrent!
So is jazz dead? Obviously, no. But if you were to press me for an explanation as to why (and for some reason no International Anthem releases sprung to mind as a rebuke [an insane proposition, I know]) I'd be tempted to offer you the latest bit of ripe fruit to from that perennial giving tree that is collaborative duo Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. I first encountered Younge on his team up with Tony Starks on 12 Reasons to Die, and unbeknownst to me for far too long, I had been listening to Muhammad as long as I had been listening to hip-hop, as the man's work with A Tribe Called Quest casts an impossibly long shadow. I've trusted their chemistry since checking out the debut of their project Midnight Hour in 2018, as the funk flowing off that bad boy helped rescue me from the depths of a tricky deep summer depression. Their new album Jazz is Dead 001 isn't as exciting as their Midnight Hour work, but damn it to hell, if it doesn't satisfy. Recorded with vintage equipment at Highland Park's Linear Labs, and roping in an army of incredibly talented friends, including funk and vibraphone pioneer Roy Ayers, Sax stallion Gary Bartz, Brazilian jazz-funk rhythm-smiths Azymuth, and Miles Davis sideman, Brian Jackson, it's nothing you haven't heard before, but then again, that's kind of the point. As Younge explained to the LA Times, the project seeks to maintain "the compositional and sonic perspectives of yesterday, but pushing that forward with a new idiom." You don't have to reinvent the wheel to get from here to Albuquerque, but that also doesn't mean you can't off-road it when the urge arises, either. Each of us has to find their own through life, after all.
Things start out nice and easy with "Hey Lover" featuring Roy Ayers, and it has a breathy, smooth and scintillating quality to its soft, courting saunter. "Distant Mode" is anchored by Gary Bartz's lyrical sax performance, which pairs surprisingly well with bursts of wild psychedelic feedback, feeling a little like a collaboration between John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix at times. Davis's boy Brian Jackson makes his appearance on the enduring "Nancy Wilson" where a twinkling piano finds itself in conversation with a nimble flute performance, setting the stage for a what feels like a romantic autumn stroll through the park. The funky and obtuse "Apocalíptico" and lightly psychedelic "Conexão" throw in a delicious dash of spacy bossa nova, while the sexy samba soak of "Não Saia Da Praça" will wriggle its way into your ear canal like an incredibly charming soon to be house-guest, talking past your defenses to get his foot in your front door. All three tracks serving to platform often overlooked strains of jazz hailing from the Americas, and I'm extremely thankful for their inclusion. If Jazz is Dead 001 doesn't convert the uninitiated into a grinning jazz-head, let me know, and I will threaten to mail them a copy of Headhunters.
Get a copy from their Bandcamp page, here.
