Word: jazzing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...call it alternative hip-hop. Don't call it neo-rap or jazz-rap or anything that would separate it from itself. What it is, straight up, is hip-hop. Call it underground hip-hop, if you have to; call it the Next Wave, if you need a name; but whatever you call it, it's already arrived...
...Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny's soundtrack to A Map of the World, the upcoming film based on Jane Hamilton's book, falls somewhere in between. Certainly no innovation, but surely no tragedy, Metheny's compositions are no doubt appropriate. The main framework of the album is a variation on a theme, punctuated by less topical instrumentations, which include very literal motifs. An apt analogy would be to say that the artist has ceded to the architect. That is to say, Metheny has selflessly concealed his artistic biases to create a non-intrusive score for a film and not a masterpiece...
Crooner was apparently intended to be a program for a New Year's Eve ball, incorporating Latin jazz standards such as "Mas Que Nada" and two or three pop favorites ("Beat It" and "Only You") into a group of songs for dancing close and reminiscing. Unfortunately, Nascimento often sounds like a wedding singer gone bad, and it's hard to sit through his version of "Beat It" with a straight face. The romance of the Spanish lyrics might hold your interest through the first song or two, but then the '80s elevator-music feel begins to shine through...
...seen the Dave Matthews band on the road and wondered who the opening act was, then Bela Fleck and the Flecktones' new album is worth a listen. Spanning nine years, the album features highlights from the band's eight previous releases. The Flecktones fuse jazz, funk and bluegrass into an eclectic mix of musical virtuosity that escapes the confines of any genre, using sounds ignored in mainstream rock, including Bela Fleck's Grammy-winning banjo skills and Future Man's synthaxe drumitar, a sort of percussion guitar that changes from rhythm to lead. Victor Wooten, arguably the best bass player...
DIED. LESTER BOWIE, 58, theatrical avant-garde jazz trumpeter and founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago; of liver cancer; in Brooklyn, New York. A key voice in the experimental-jazz movement of the 1960s in Chicago, Bowie recorded and performed in Europe and the U.S. for 35 years--often in his trademark white coat...