Acid jazz

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This article is about the music genre called acid jazz. For an article about the record label, see Acid Jazz Records.

Acid jazz (also known as club jazz) is a musical genre that combines elements of soul music, funk, disco particularly repetitive beats and modal harmony.[1]. It developed over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as taking the sound of Jazz-Funk onto electronic dance/pop music. Acid Jazz is also the name of a recording label in the United Kingdom (founded by Gilles Peterson & Eddie Pillar) which issues recordings by artists in the genre.

While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition (sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz interpretation as part of their performance. The compositions of groups such as The Brand New Heavies often feature chord structures usually associated with Jazz music. The Heavies in particular were known in their early years for beginning their songs as catchy pop and rapidly steering them into jazz territory before "resolving" the composition and thus not losing any pop listeners but successfully "exposing" them to jazz elements in "baby steps".

The Acid Jazz "movement" is also seen as a "revival" of Jazz-Funk or Jazz-Fusion or soul jazz by Leading Djs such as Norman Jay or Gilles Peterson or Patrick Forge. AKA "Rare Groove" crate diggers.

1 Origins
2 Acid jazz in the international context
3 Key artists
4 Compilation albums
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Origins

The early origins of the genre relate to 1970s funk revival movement initiated in the culture of Northern England (notably Manchester, Sheffield, and and Liverpool areas) in the mid-1980s. This revival and it's parent movement (dating back to the 1960's) are referred to as Northern Soul. The underground revival of this music post-disco came to be known as Rare Groove. In this movement, DJs competed against each other to find the rarest grooves--mainly from forgotten 70s soul and funk. It may also have connotations of rare as in a "rare steak" (not overcooked, raw, etc...).

Disc jockeys Gilles Peterson and Chris Bangs are generally credited with coining the term acid jazz at a 1987 'Talkin' Loud Sayin Something' seesion. At the time, this was Peterson's regular Sunday afternoon club at Dingwalls in Camden, London.

In his Radio 1 biogrpahy, Peterson describes how the term Acid jazz came about. "We put on this old 7-inch by Mickey and the Soul Generation which was a rare groove record with a mad rock guitar intro and no beat. I started vary speeding it so it sounded all warped. Chris Bangs got on the microphone and said, 'If that was acid house, this is acid jazz'. That's how acid jazz started, just a joke!"^[1] ^[2]

[edit] Acid jazz in the international context

In the United States notable acid-jazz groups have included The Brand New Heavies and Solsonics; although during the 1990s the major contributions from the US related to jazz dance were predominantly in jazz-house (from labels such as 8 Ball Records) and jazz-rap, particularly by artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, De la Soul, and the Jungle Brothers. From Japan, notable artists included United Future Organization who released 'I Love my Baby: My Baby Loves Jazz' as well as a cover of Van Morrison's 'Moondance'; another prominent artist from Japan was the female vocalist, Monday Michiru. From the UK, Repercussions who had a top hit, Promise me nothing. Other more recent artists and groups who have produced music in this genre include Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Mother Earth, Mr. Scruff, Visit Venus, Praful, and Down to the Bone.