History of Jazztronica (cont'd)

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From Analogue Groove to Digital Beat

Eventually, acid jazz stopped being seen as a cohesive movement, and the bands that continued to be interested in producing this kind of music existed as groove bands on their own terms. The James Taylor Quartet, for example, has been around since the initial acid jazz explosion in the UK, and have gone from a band highly influenced by Herbie Hancock and late-‘60s jazz-influenced soundtracks (their first single was a version of Hancock’s music for the film Blow Up) to an organ-based jazz/R&B outfit whose influences include Brother Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith, and Richard “Groove” Holmes. Again, the hybrid of ‘60s/’70s soul, jazz, and Latin that acid jazz incorporated represented the return of soul to jazz music after the hyperactive histrionics of bebop, and it was brought back largely by the work of Ramsey Lewis’ trio, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, the aforementioned organ masters, and a handful of grooving jazz guitarists and tenor sax players. Taylor’s latest work combines these elements with the hard-driving funk workouts of the Meters, and it allows for much more improvisation, which is still at the heart of this music, whether it’s jazz, funk, rock, or whatever.

The marriage of jazz and electronica may seem rather odd at first, but not when one remembers that jazz has been, for most of its history, associated with dance. Early forms, such as the cakewalk, were dance-based, and New Orleans-style collective improvisation certainly motivated people to dance. The swing era saw jazz music that was inextricably linked to social dancing. Bebop was the first real attempt to remove the element of dance from jazz and move it into the purely intellectual realm of a “listening” music. Although cool jazz did retain much of the harmonic complexity of bebop, it was clearly a reaction to the energy of bop. Nonetheless, it was even more removed from dance rhythm. Modal jazz, a development usually credited to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, removed much of bop’s harmonic complexity and created a more hypnotic listening experience, but again was not dance music. Hard bop and soul jazz brought the blues back into jazz and gave it a groove that resonated in the physical body once again. Miles took this idea to its logical conclusion, which meant incorporating polyrhythmic funk and emphasizing rhythm as the chief organizational element of the music. Bringing in electric piano and bass made perfect sense, and from there it was only a short distance to electrifying his trumpet and treating the recording studio as yet another instrument. Disco asserted the primacy of the beat and got everyone dancing again, then gave birth to hip-hop, techno, electro-beat, and eventually to a variety of other dance-based electronic genres. Putting jazz instruments and a swinging style over the electronic dance beat makes perfect sense in this context, even though electronic music is no longer always necessarily dance music. In addition, jazz and electronica are primarily instrumental musics. Obviously, there is a great body of jazz vocal work and electronica does use vocals, either overlaid on the electronic soundscape or sampled. But at heart, both are instrumental musical forms, and both are open to incorporating outside influences.

Though electronica started to assert itself during the 1980s, many of its genres did not really develop until the ‘90s. Trip-Hop, a sound that developed in Bristol, England, took the sounds of UK House music and slowed it down, bringing in the influences of dub, soul, jazz, and sounds from movie soundtracks. Massive Attack, the first group to record and basically define the trip-hop sound, utilized jazzy piano solos by Craig Armstrong and vocals by Everything But the Girl’s Tracey Thorn on their second album, Protection, released in 1994. The dreamy sounds they recorded evoke the meditative music that Miles Davis recorded well before his electric period as well as some of his work on In A Silent Way. Other performers with a foot in trip-hop, such as Howie B, were influenced heavily by Davis sidemen or rock performers who were influenced by Miles, such as Santana and John McLaughlin. The group Portishead made heavy use of the Fender Rhodes electric piano (going so far as to name one track on their debut album Dummy “Roads” as a pun on the name “Rhodes”) and sampled Weather Report’s “Elegant People” from Black Market on the track “Strangers.” The primary thing that trip-hop did was to slow electronic music down enough to allow for an introspective quality and to allow it to demonstrate how jazz sounds could be merged with the electronic beat of the music. In essence it was a sort of electronic kin to cool jazz.

As the 1990s progressed, jazz musicians became more and more interested in incorporating elements of electronic music and hip-hop into their jazz work. In many ways, the situation is parallel to that which existed when Miles Davis began to look into electronic instrumentation, rock, and funk in the late ‘60s. Jazz seems to have emerged from the classicist outlook of the 1980s and once again musicians of all stripes seem to be interested in working together again.

One of the first British musicians to explore both the combination of technology and jazz as well as the spiritual quest of John Coltrane was saxophonist Courtney Pine. Pine was initially a Coltrane sound-alike, but he began to bring soul jazz, reggae, and other musical genres to the mix with his 1992 album Closer to Home, which made use of his background touring with such reggae bands as Clint Eastwood & General Saint. Since then he has eagerly brought hip-hop elements into his work, performing live with a DJ in addition to his usual combo. His 1996 album, Modern Day Jazz Stories featured DJ Pongo on turntables as well as DJ Sparki on hardware/samples. Using an Apple Mac with Logic Audio software and Pro Tools, Pine generates loops as well as multiple flute and sax parts and combines them with studio techniques that include filtering and pitch-shifting, Pine was able to create the most convincing combination of mainstream jazz and electronica/DJ culture. This combination of jazz fusion and hip-hop has sometimes been dubbed “Trip Jazz.” The DJs function very much as part of the band, throwing ideas at the players and responding to their playing much the way a percussionist might do. On his next album Underground, Pine completed the fusion by taking breaks from recordings that he owned and having live musicians reproduce them in the studio. These recordings were then subjected to various forms of studio manipulation, bringing the idea full circle. He then produced a remix album that featured remixes of tracks from Underground and Modern Day Jazz Stories done by drum ‘n’ bass DJs like Roni Size, Peshay, Attica Blues and Headstrong. His recent recording, Back In the Day, continues his fusion of genres with a sound that is close to sixties soul jazz/boogaloo. Still, Pine continued to use modern studio technology to put the album together and achieve the contemporary sound that he wanted: "I wanted the album to sound as if it had been remixed. You know, I liked the remix album a lot and I decided to do it myself this time to get the best possible performance from the sessions and then edit until I was happy. In a lot of ways, making this album was like being a DJ.” Pine has demonstrated that it is completely possible to utilize the latest technology and to incorporate some of the latest elements of popular music without losing a jazz sound and identity. His thoughts on this certainly echo those of Miles Davis, though in different language: “If somebody’s telling you that you can’t step outside the jazz room then that’s wrong. I feel I come from outside the jazz room anyway. What gives me a buzz is when somebody hears my music and hears the different elements at play and says ‘I didn’t know jazz was like that.’"

Matthew Shipp is an American pianist who, upon his arrival in New York in 1985, began collaborating with a group of musicians that include Roscoe Mitchell, saxophonist David S. Ware, and William Parker. He has recorded a string of fine trio albums as well as working with the David S. Ware Quartet, and has demonstrated a wide range of musical interests ranging from Charles Ives to trip-hop. After a self-imposed hiatus, Shipp returned to recording with albums that seemed to consolidate his earlier statements into more succinct performances. Citing an interest in Massive Attack and Portishead, Shipp indicated "I'm into DJ culture and hip-hop and drum n' bass. I'll be using acoustic piano with Chris Flann generating beats and syncing the piano parts up to rhythm tracks.” The resulting album, 2002’s Nu-Bop created quite a sensation and has cemented the idea that jazztronica is a legitimate new genre. Shipp has also been corralled by Thirsty Ear Records to serve as producer and curator of their new jazz line The Blue Series. The idea was to take avant-garde or “new jazz” players and take the free influences to a new place, possibly combining them with more mainstream sounds. Shipp started the imprint off with his Pastoral Composure and there have been releases by William Parker, Matt Maneri, and Roy Campbell, but suddenly electronica surfaced as a major element of the series with Shipp’s Nu-Bop, DJ Spooky’s Optometry and two releases by UK Drum ‘N’ Bass group Spring Heel Jack, Masses and Amassed. What was going on here? “All in all we seem to be delving into the DJ area…It just seems that's the way things are going… And it has gained a momentum of its own.” Asked if he thinks this new fusion will upset those more interested in mainstream or “classic” free jazz, Shipp says: “That is the only way to move forward, is to piss people off. Miles Davis is major proof of that. Throughout history is a major proof of that. The only way to move forward is to piss people off. You piss people off because of their preconceptions and their preconceptions keep an area stagnant. There is no other way to move forward than to piss people off.”

 

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