Music Blogs

Jazz. What does it mean to you? If you are of the 18- to 25- year-old demographic most likely reading this blog, jazz probably equates with corny music played by irrelevant musicians. But in my conversations with artists as diverse as Swizz Beatz, Crystal Method, Q Tip and Questlove of the Roots, they certainly know jazz is anything but irrelevant. All of these of artists, even if they haven't literally sampled jazz recordings (and some have), certainly appreciate the genre's unique sonic identity and understand its historical musical importance.

But what of the future of jazz? Sweden's Compost label has for years produced the Future Sounds Of Jazz series, typically stocking its grooves with such non-jazz but forward thinking sample sculptors as Yukimi Nagano, Stateless, Foremost Poets, Joseph Malik, and Savath & Savalas. Too bad there is no true jazz equivalent to Compost though industrious labels like Sounds Of Jazz, Cryptogramophone and Thirsty Ear could perhaps assemble similarly groundbreaking comps, if only US copyright laws didn't keep the boot to their necks. Two labels offering quality contestants in the future jazz sweepstakes are longtime Boston area label Accurate and recently founded company World Culture Music.

One of Accurate's latest offerings, Josh Roseman's New Constellations: Live in Vienna, reveals how elastic and thrilling jazz inspired music can be when the conditions are right, the musicians inspired, and the audience as hip as the players onstage. New Constellations: Live in Vienna documents Roseman's evolution from a relatively straight laced member of New York's Groove Collective into a full blown jazz revolutionary, his trombone and compositional concepts embracing drum and bass, third world dub, Henry Mancini and The Beatles. "Greasy Feets Music" sounds like Little Feat mashed with Weather Report, King Tubby and James Brown. "Olsen Twins Subpoena" imagines a hot blind date with Betty Davis (former wife of Miles Davis), who was known to shout profanities and throw panties at will. The Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better" is a drugged dub tirade in Roseman's slippery t-bone hands, recalling something your grandparents might have played in their newly paneled basement, circa 1960. It's redolent of the late 1950s: Jackie Gleason, black and white TV, and southern Americans still happily employed below the border.

Josh Roseman: "Greasy Feats Music"  (MP3, 4:04)

The Beatles, Part II: Julie Hardy's World Culture Music debut, The Wish, is the kind of clear eyed, clarion call recording that intimates the beauty of Charlie Parker, the melodic logic of Pat Metheny, and the simplicity of Jewel. Whether through wordless vocal riffing or perfectly enunciated lyrics, Hardy emits both hipster cool and glowing warmth. Recalling the mountaintop tonality of Judy Collins coupled to the rhythmic dazzle Argentine pop star Pedro Aznar, Hardy remakes the Beatles' "I'm Looking Through You" into a simmering, sunny whirlwind. And unlike some more traditionally minded jazz vocalists, Hardy pushes her band to provoke the gods, her vocals challenging them to sprint to the finish and come up aces. Interplay and artistry makes The Wish worthy listening.