Jazz Articles about Jazz Punks

About Jazz Punks

Album Review

Jazz Punks: Jazz Punks: Smashups

Read "Jazz Punks: Smashups" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 9, 2012

A homogenous and playfully bastardized take on modern jazz, the Los Angeles-based Jazz Punks offers a rather chic, and youthful blend of jazz, punk-rock and rock on its debut outing. It's an undulating approach and at times, pleasantly schizophrenic by design. Here, electric guitarist Sal Polcino looms as the bridge between the rock and jazz element to augment the all-acoustic instrumentation tendered by his cohorts. The album comprises a hodgepodge of quotes and lucid interpretations of jazz and rock classics, ...

Album Review

Jazz Punks: Smashups

Read "Smashups" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
April 24, 2012

The conceit of the Los Angeleno Jazz Punks' debut is an appealing one: creative arrangements combining ("mashing up") really well-known jazz tunes ("Take The 'A' Train," “A Night In Tunisia," “Take Five") with really well known rock 'n' roll tunes ("Foxy Lady," “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?," “Misty Mountain Hop"). The jazz is mostly classic post-bop; the rock 'n' roll, mostly late-1960s/early-1970s FM fare. (Not all the sampled compositions are listed in the credits--half the fun is identifying ...

Extended Analysis

Jazz Punks: Smashups

by Franz A. Matzner
April 16, 2012

Jazz PunksSmashupsSelf Produced2012As its name and debut album title suggest, the Los Angeles-based Jazz Punks seeks to “smash up" the jazz, punk and rock genres. But let's face it, jazz and punk hate each other, right? Jazz: all brain and no balls. Punk: all balls no brain. Nothing in common.On the one hand, we have punk. Blistering pace; overtly political; born out of the hard times and cross-cultural cauldron of ...