Russell Gunn’s Ethnomusicology Volume 3 is
the most hip-hop-centric of the recent electric jazz releases
by trumpet players, and so a lot of how you feel about it
is going to depend on your reaction to hip-hop turntable scratching
and rap. But his trumpet playing contains more obvious bebop
references than that of his peers on their recent forays into
the R&B/hip-hop/jazztronica world. On the opening track,
“No Seperation,” for example, his trumpet line
could easily be put in front of a swinging jazz rhythm section
and swung like straightahead jazz. The vocals, which are manipulated
sections of Oliver Lake’s spoken word piece “Seperation”
add a great deal of hip-hop feel to the piece, so their source
may come as a surprise to those who will search in vain for
the name of the person rapping on the track.
“The Critic’s Song” features a sharp rhythm
track, and again Gunn swirls in with an easy, swinging trumpet
line that not only demonstrates his superior chops, but fits
right into the funky rhythm that he’s set up. “Variations
(on a conspiracy theory)” features more hot trumpet
work plus Kebbi Williams’ sax playing and some vibe
work by Stefon Harris that pulls all the elements here together.
And when the thing kicks into a higher gear on “East
St. Louis”, you have to wonder whether you are listening
to the same album—it’s a jazz jam, for crying
out loud, with Latin overtones. Whatever hip-hop influence
is left as Gunn tears into a Dizzy Gillespie-style solo takes
the “A” train right out of town. Overall, there’s
more hip-hop here than on Ethnomusicology V. 2, which
was largely a jazz album with some turntable work, but the
elements in play here are so seamlessly combined that they
make most other efforts look more clunky and awkward by comparison.
One reason for this is that Gunn is not an “outsider”
in any of the genres he is working with. He is intimately
familiar with both the history and current trends in hip-hop,
and he is a superb trumpet player and improviser who knows
his jazz backward and forward. And he can get lyrical when
he wants to, as the standout track “Yesterdays”
featuring Gunn playing a very melodic line on electric trumpet,
demonstrates.
Unquestionably, though, the centerpiece of this album is
contained in the last two tracks, the anti-lynching “Strange
Fruit” and its companion piece, “Stranger Fruit”
which uses images of urban police brutality, and slavery,
both economic and physical, to demonstrate that things may
not have changed so much. Both tracks use a sensual, hypnotic
guitar drone that is slightly threatening, with a free jazz
sound building slowly beneath the surface, with Oliver Lake’s
alto work coming to the fore by the conclusion of “Stranger
Fruit.” It is a much more sonically jarring performance
than we have heard throughout the album, both musically and
lyrically, and it ends things on a less comfortable note.
It is curious, but ultimately Gunn’s album is not only
the best at incorporating elements of hip-hop into a jazz
framework, but it is also an album that has consistently grown
on me. Whereas some of the other entries in this category
have sounded great at first, only to fade a bit with time,
I find that this album, which I was initially uncertain how
much I liked, is likely to be on my playlist for some time
to come.
