Is That Jazz?

James Brown's funky beats, brought to you by drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, are the most popularly sampled in hip hop, but what about jazz? Has it not significantly impacted hip hop as well? The answer is of course, yes. Especially during the late '80s and early '90s golden-era of the genre. Some of the style's most iconic tracks, by groundbreaking acts like Public Enemy (see Fear of a Black Planet) and Beastie Boys (see Root Down) feature jazz as their main ingredient. As time moves forward, more artists have found innovative ways to incorporate jazz into their hip hop music. Some would say that the two worlds have no business colliding, while others feel that they are one in the same. Marquis Hill blatantly reveals: "To me, it's the same music—it's coming from the same tree—and they're extensions of one another." The funky rhythms on albums like Herbie Hancock's Headhunters (Columbia, 1973) and its follow-up, Thrust (Columbia, 1974), both prove this. However, instead of viewing jazz and hip hop as "coming from the same tree," let us rather view genres like jazz and blues as the roots of a tree, whereupon branches produce leaves like hip hop and rock 'n roll, which continue to fall and regrow.

Both musical worlds (jazz and hip hop) have gone through similar rotations, each moving through their "cool" and "hard" phases, as well as their "pop" and "underground" phase. The possibilities are endless in both genres. Duke Ellington preached about how music should be free of categorization and continue progressing into the future. Unfortunately, we never got the revolutionary's take on the age of sampling. Dave Brubeck, famously stated that jazz is "freedom within a framework" and also "freedom within discipline," expressing how the genre requires a form, in order to impact. It is safe to say that hip hop is one in the same, in these regards. To quote DJ Premier, "Jazz came from the streets, hip hop came from the streets. It's just a different language." Both were also at their peak amidst racial tensions within the US. Jazz was stretching out during the civil rights movement of the early 1960s and hip hop was at a peak during the LA riots, after the Rodney King trials of the early 1990s. Musically trained players and vocalists from various backgrounds, have come together and helped the fusion of jazz and hip hop to come alive over the past few decades.

Let's begin with the obvious, A Tribe Called Quest, who have been jazz messengers within the realm of hip hop since their conception. Just like Stan Getz was dubbed "cool-jazz" in the '50s, Tribe's tracks can be categorized in the "cool-hip-hop" category. They are relaxed and accessible. Releasing three award-winning albums from 1990-1993 instantly made them one of the first hip-hop/jazz collaborators. The Low-End Theory (Jive, 1991) is the group's second release. It most notably features Ron Carter on upright bass for the track Verses from the Abstract. Carter had nothing but nice things to say about his experiences aiding the MCs on their musical quests of convergence. "They had some really good musical ideas, about changes, form and keys," shares Carter. The album opener, Excursions, features samples of A Chant for Bu, by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. The group took the horn and bass tracks from the 6/8 arrangement and morphed them on top of a 4/4 beat. Buggin' Out samples the song, Minya's the Mooch, by Jack DeJohnette's Directions (off the 1977 release, New Rags). Check the Rime features multiple, layered samples by: Average White Band, Minnie Riperton, Grover Washington, Jr. and Steve Miller Band. A Tribe Called Quest were musical messengers on a quest for transcendence. Many believe that they fulfilled that during their short time span as a unit and "The Low-End Theory" proves this undeniably so.

The intro to volume one of Guru's Jazzmatazz record, features dialogue by Guru himself. He speaks on how jazz and hip hop are both heavily steeped in reality. Therefore, the rapper insinuates that the two genres essentially belong to each other. By the end of this epic release, it is hard not to be convinced. The rapper elevates the fusion of jazz and hip hop, by rapping over live tracks, produced by real musicians. If one had to sum up Jazzmatazz in one word, "atmospheric" would surely be copesetic. On the track, Sights in the City, we can smell the pavement of the streets, feeling the pain and loneliness of those who lived on them, as Carleen Anderson's bone chilling vocals grace the chorus hook. That combined with Guru's verses, paints a perfectly vivid canvas. N'Dea Davenport's vocals on Trust Me hits us with a more acid jazz feel. She is vocalist of the UK based group, The Brand-New Heavies. The trumpet playing of Donald Byrd can be heard on the opening track, Loungin' and Ray Ayers vibraphone magic heavily hits us on Take A Look (At Yourself). We even get a little French flavor from MC Solaar on Le Bien, Le Mal. More volumes of Jazzmatazz ensued through the '90s and early 2000s, all giving fresh takes on the fusion of jazz and hip hop. Guru passed away in 2010, but his legacy lives on. He has gone down in history as being one of the main fusers of the two styles.

Moving into the new millennium, hip hop was thriving commercially, and evolving endlessly in the underground. At this time, rapper Busdriver, who delivers his vocals in a bee bop-motion, birthed his career as a fearless pioneer. He began his musical journey at age thirteen, with group 4/29, while living in LA, amidst the Rodney King riots of 1992. His father is a successful film writer and producer and his uncle, a composer. Busdriver samples anything from classical to jazz, with tracks like Imaginary Places, which samples Bach's Minuet and Badinerie Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, off of the Temporary Forever album, from 2002. His album, Cosmic Cleavage (Big Dada 2004), features Nagging Nimbus, sampling Take Ten (RCA, 1963), by Paul Desmond, in a smoothly enhanced fashion. How often do we get to hear someone rap over 10/8? Busdriver's music is often surprising in its approach, but always entertaining and original at its core.

Aesop Rock is a visionary storytelling MC, who has been an underground sensation since the early 2000s. His live shows are known to be riddled with off-the-cuff freestyles and his beats are almost always provided by his DJ compadre, Blockhead. The DJ's spacey musical landscapes pair up nicely with Aesop's incessantly poetic rhymes. Their collaboration on the release, Float, creates its own style of hip hop integrated jazz, by using layered samples of songs by artists like Dinah Washington and Yusef Lateef, on the track Commencement at the Obedience Academy. The tune Big Bang, samples more modern-day players, the Tin Hat Trio, using upright bass and flute tracks from their song The Quick Marble Tremble. The song Oxygen features music from Charlie Byrd's Cancão Do Amor Demais (1965) and the instrumental, Breakfast with Blockhead features Ron Carter's Little Waltz (1969). This hip hop release pulls from the past and subtly morphs the future, by showing how far one can push the genre before it eventually explodes.

Speaking of explosions, Flying Lotus is an artist who is constantly expanding in his avant-garde-hip hop approach to electronic music. The DJ, rapper and filmmaker, who is the grand nephew of Alice Coltrane, has become a master of musical landscapes. He definitely enjoys taking his listeners on a journey. It runs in the family. His album Cosmogramma, from 2010, is a layered cake of all types of styles, with jazz often at the forefront. Sun Ra was a main influence for the album, with its extraterrestrial energy and space themed sounds. At times, the album sounds like a sci-fi nightmare. At other times, it hits like a soothing wave and also features guests, like Thom Yorke of Radiohead and Ravi Coltrane. Coming from his upbringing, Flying Lotus views jazz as a spiritual experience and from his film school background, he views music as a cinematic ride. The DJ creator executes his albums as if they are suites and is blind to categorization. He sonically sprinkles just about every sound under the sun into his music.

DJ Madlib, is also a jazz messenger in his own right. His father is singer, Otis Jackson and uncle is trumpet player, Jon Faddis. In the early 2000s, Blue Note opened up their recording archive to Madlib, who not only remixed, but also "recontextualized" a bundle of cuts. This was formulated into the album, Shades of Blue (Blue Note, 2003). Some tunes are newly produced, and others are integrated compositions. Certain tracks are enhanced by simply a little extra flavor, in a mixtape-like fashion. He treats the Blue Note archives with courtesy and respect, while playing some of the instruments himself on the fused album, which features reimagining's of songs like Song for My Father and Footprints. His release, Blunted in the Bomb Shelter (Antidote, 2002), follows this same method with Trojan Records' catalog of dub, ska and reggae. One of Madlib's more recent releases, Sound Ancestors (Madlib Invazion, 2021) is also one to check out.

Anti-Pop Consortium are a group consisting of three rappers from NYC, that are on a UK dance music label (Warp) and have been creating avant-garde style hip hop since the early 2000s. Their album Arrythmia (Warp, 2002) features rhyming with a jazz-inspired approach, being jagged and jostling at times and definitely for the acquired taste. The song "Ping Pong," samples table tennis and produces both a polyphonic and polyrhythmic quality, as the members rhyme over top. They're considered avant-garde, but according to true hip hop heads, the whole genre is avant-garde in itself. Especially in the way that it deconstructs other music in a radical fashion. At the same time, it is deeply based in the West African "griot" tradition, which transmits history and folklore in the form of story songs. Anti-Pop Consortium is a group that is pulling from both of these spectrums to produce a truly original sound.

The fusion of different styles of music is a touchy subject for some, but why? Many purists tend to think jazz has no place elsewhere in music, let alone in hip hop. On the other hand, what is truly pure? Was jazz not built from other things, just like all genres? Evolving and transcending within genres, that were initially built on evolution and transcendence themselves, seems to be no crime. Nevertheless, jazz will continue to inspire different genres, whether above or below the surface, but what about hip hop? Will it carry on the same type of refined legacy and respect which jazz has held? Most importantly of all... will it keep on progressing in a creatively free fashion or eventually be completely gobbled up by the corporate "fat cats" of the music industry? Or even worse, by the fans themselves? Only time will tell, but with artists like the ones described above, the fight will still stand. For now, perhaps the Malay proverb will shed some optimism on the subject: "Although the tree grows high, the falling leaves always return to the roots."

Sources

• Abdul-Rauf, Leila. "A Tribe Called Quest's Marriage of Jazz and Hip Hop." Ubisoft. 3 August, 2021.
• bkellert. "Exploring Flyng Lotus' Cosmogramma." llertuberg.com. 13 May, 2020.
• Cibula, Matt. "Anti-Pop Consortium: Arrythmia." Pop-Matters. 29 May, 2002.
• "Float" (2000). www.whosampled.com
• Cowie, F. Del. "Inside Madlib's Bomb Shelter." Exclaim. 31 December, 2005.
• Green, Dylan. Madlib's Incmparable 'Shades of Blue.' VinylMePlease. 18 May, 2023.
• Jennings, Andre. "Madlib: Shades of Blue (Madlib Invades Blue Note)." The Absolute Sound. 22 May, 2024.
• Meline, Gabe. "Ron Carter and the Low End Theory." KQEP. 4 June, 2014.
• Steven, Lewis. "Late 1980s-2010s." carnegiehall.org. 2024.

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