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South African Jazz: Acid Jazz
By Struan Douglas and Iain Harris
With an eye to the museums of music and an ear to rap innovation, Twotone
productions discover that the soul of acid jazz is in the soles.
Evolution and cooking wear the same apron, wielding their wooden spoons
with the same deft touch. Ginger, garlic, or genes - they mix it all up,
adding in a bit of this, taking out a little of that, but always adding
flavour. That same wooden spoon has whipped the jazz stirfry up into a fresh
and funky format, continually evolving, mixing in the old with the new, and
connecting the dots of the past masters to the numbers of the present
innovators. But always concentrating on the feet. Take the vibrance of a
Satchmo blow, throw in the passion of EllaÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs scat or the fire of BirdÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs
bebop, and add the suave, swish and groove of the dance eclectic. ThatÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs the
recipe for acid jazz.
Its a recipe thatÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs loose and eclectic, a genre hopper that draws on just
about every music style. Cape Town DJs the Jazz Professors mix in all sorts
of tunes under the acid jazz banner, ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂfrom old traditional tracks, funk,
soul, latin, disco and R&B to trip hop, hip hop, drum ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂn bass, kwaito and
even movie theme tunes.ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ Typical acid jazz groups like Jamiroquai, The Brand
New Heavies, US3 and The Charles Hunter Trio also draw on such disparate
styles, producing music that varies in feel from light and dancy to dark and
brooding. What makes it all acid jazz are the jazzy cuts, be they in the
vocals, a sampled trumpet riff, a Hammond organ, or whatever it is that says
ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂjazzÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ. But the emphasis is always on dancing, on shifting the jazz focus
from the head to the feet. Acid jazz can flirt with any genre as long as
thereÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs that jazzy feel that makes you want to jive. ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂItÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs a feel more than
a label,ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂ say the Jazz Professors.
And that feel is in the bassline groove, a groove that was born in the
sixties out of a desire to dance. The typical walking bass sound of
traditional jazz, from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker, was replaced by an
up-tempo and busy breakbeat. Topped with jazz in any form, this breakbeat
was the start of the typical acid jazz sound, with Blue Note legends such as
Herbie Hancock, Donald Byrd, Lou Donaldson and Lee Morgan doing the
pioneering. But acid jazz only took off in the eighties when it found
mainstream form in the DJ booth. With one eye on the dancing feet, and the
other on improvisation and experimentation, turntables took the genre to a
new level of popularity. By spinning vocal tracks over the beats, the
importance of the voice as an instrument was pushed to the foreground. The
big acid jazz groups like Jamiroquai and the Brand New Heavies emerged from
this trend, exploiting the popularity of vocals and with huge record sales
and chart topping hits establishing acid jazz in the mainstream.
Despite such success, it still hadnÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂt tapped into the voice of urban youth.
Rap had emerged from urban culture as a hugely commercial and unifying
musical phenomenon that captured the essence of the streets and in order to
achieve even greater exposure, acid jazz embraced it. Musicians like the
Guru and Lonnie Liston Smith had been playing with this hybrid of acid jazz
and rap in the late eighties, but the real breakthrough came with Miles
Davis and rapper Easy-Moe-BeeÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Doo-Bop, a fusion of bebop and the doo-wop
of rap. Guru also pioneered with Jazzmatazz featuring veteran jazzters such
as Donald Byrd and Courtney Pine with rappers MC Solaar and NÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂdea Davenport.
And by playing alongside and over samples from classic Blue Note recordings,
US3 has reinvented these sounds as jazzy dance grooves. Their version of
Cantaloop, stormed the charts and nightclubs, bringing the Herbie Hancock
legend to a new generation.
ItÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs rap that has brought acid jazz full circle back to its roots, paying
tribute to and building on the innovations of the past masters. And by
adding the rhyming and timing of lyrical improvisation to the acid jazz
eclectic, rap has bridged gaps and turned acid jazz into a powerful form of
cultural expression.
Clearly, acid jazz is dynamic and malleable and is not afraid to explore
all musical possibilities, mixing up eras, ideas and feelings into a
cutting edge form. Funk and rap have found new voice with acid jazz, people
are sampling it with techno and house and South African artists like Moses
Mololekwa are experimenting with kwaito. The possibilities are limitless. As
a genre acid jazz is somewhat indefinable, but as a stirfry, it is one where
any ingredient will do, as long as the stirring is jazzy, the serving
plentiful, the taste kicking and the feet leading the way.
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