Jazz Hip Hop

Jazz Hip Hop originated in the late 1980s by groups like A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr. Jazz Hip Hop keeps the rhythm of Hip Hop and rap, but introduced jazz melodies will be introduced as well, which creates an abstract mood.

Jazz Hip Hop

Jazz Hip Hop is one of the most perfect combinations of genres in the music. The combination of rhythm, jazz melodies, and introducing eastern melody is one of the most memorable features of Jazz Hip Hop.

District has a long history of championing the jazzy side of the contemporary music spectrum and as part of the Jameson Black Barrel Smooth Series, Dean Van Nguyen explored the relationship between hip hop and jazz through 10 important tracks. From the MPC-loving producers sampling seminal jazz cuts to the rappers flipping the script and embracing live instrumentation, the selections span the course of thirty years and provide a window into the key developments between the genres.

As recording techniques became more sophisticated, the jazz rap subgenre began to incorporate live instruments, often from the hands of the very musicians who once recorded the albums that producers loaded into their crates. And the rappers who embraced the form tended to favour dense rhymes and sharp lyricism, helping to make jazz-rap a particularly cherished form for hip-hop traditionalists.

Whether borrowing from the sound and feel of great jazz or sampling of great tunes and catalogues like Blue Note Records, hip hop artists have frequently felt a great affinity with the jazz tradition.

It goes both ways too, as an increasing number of jazz musicians find much to love about hip hop's energy and forward thinking production. In recent years, Toronto trio BADBADNOTGOOD have been frequent collaborators with members of California's hip hop collective Odd Future. Their album III was a Double J feature album.

They told us in a recent interview "the two genres of rap and jazz have a lot in common, the attention to rhythm and the feeling of it and the swing of it. Soloists in jazz could be compared to rappers and vice versa. It's a really cool relationship between the two."

Guru's Jazzmatazz compilations were a landmark exploration of the mutual love-in between jazz and hip hop. Recorded with a variety of singers, Vol 1 was one of the first albums to include a live jazz band with hip hop production and rapping.

As one of hip hop's most acclaimed and prolific artist/producers, Madlib was ideally poised to be given access to the vaults of the iconic jazz label Blue Note Records. The resulting album Shades Of Blue combines remixes and newly recorded versions of Blue Note originals by Madlib's band Yesterday's New Quintet.

Today Braxton Cook revealed a superb offering, his new album Who Are You When No One Is Watching? The artist and saxophonist delivers a modern jazz album that feels urgent. The album is compelling and it hit us squarely in the chest when we listened to it a few moons ago.

Robert GlasperListen to The Robert Glasper Experiment performing John Coltrane's composition, "Afro Blue." Note the hip-hop beat influenced by hip-hop producer J Dilla played by hip-hop/jazz drummer Chris Dave; also note how the other instruments repeat a four measure loop similar to a looped sample in hip-hop.

Jason MoranListen to jazz pianist Jason Moran performing the early rap composition "Planet Rock." Note how Moran reworks the drum machine and synthesizer approach of the original recording by rapper Afrika Bambaataa into a live band plus electronics version. Also note how Moran improvises his piano solo in the rhythm of the rap lyric performance.

Many hip-hop producers re-use parts of jazz recordings and manipulate them by isolating sections, speeding them up, slowing them down, changing their keys, reversing them, and layering them with other recordings to create tracks or beats for rappers.

ExcursionsRadio is the world's one and only hip-hop and jazz radio show. It is hosted by Dan Seeff, West Coast Director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz and also a bassist, guitarist, writer, and producer who has appeared on albums by such artists as Drake, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Z.

The show, broadcast and streamed weekly around the world from Los Angeles, focuses on the connections between the two genres, playing hip-hop tracks that include jazz samples back to back with the very jazz recordings that were sampled.

ExcursionsRadio also features live interviews with guests from both worlds. Recent interviewees have included such jazz artists as Terri Lyne Carrington, Billy Childs, Gerald Clayton, and Christian McBride; and such hip-hop artists as Antman Wonder, DJ Khalil, the Pharcyde, and Slum Village.

Our fun and energetic Jazz and Hip-Hop classes have something for everyone, from ages 4 through adult. For the younger students, we offer jazz/hip-hop classes, which combine the foundation of jazz technique with current hip-hop styles, using age-appropriate music and movement. For older students and adults, we offer a pure hip-hop class for those who wish to learn the most up-to-date hip-hop moves, and we also offer an adults-only jazz class for adults of all ages and ability levels. In addition, we offer three levels of jazz classes as part of our dance performance teams, for students who enjoy performing and wish to gain additional performance experience in jazz dance.

This unique partnership between NJPAC and Rutgers University-Newark celebrates the rich historical connection between jazz and poetry, creates opportunities for public engagement, strengthens community ties through the arts, amplifies the authentic voices of the people of Greater Newark, and engages a new generation of poets, jazz musicians and teaching artists.

Building upon The Queens Jazz Trail map commissioned by Flushing Town Hall in 1998 and the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archives, Mapping Jazz and Hip-Hop in Queens will conduct interviews and research to chart the homes of both jazz and hip-hop artists affiliated with Queens. We will also explore the genealogy of connection, including neighborhoods, familial and friendship ties, as well as listening and sampling patterns. By convening jazz and hip-hop historians, artists and practitioners, the project will document the oral history of these two major art forms in Queens and make this knowledge accessible to the public through an interactive digital map. 041b061a72