Acid Jazz is a form of jazz that is fairly new. It incorporates some modern ideas that aren't a part of other forms of jazz. It could be described as combination of funk, jazz, and hiphop. Acid Jazz bands are usually four to six people, and&can include instruments like guitar, drums, bass, vocals, saxophone, and turntables. Acid Jazz, unlike conventional jazz, is played almost exclusively by young people.

Acid jazz can and does sometimes include traditional intruments with new sound, and sometimes sounds like what jimmy hendricks would sound like with a saxaphone. It now includes some forms of jazz/jungle. Even some drum n bass is mixed with jazz. The high-hat has expanded into speedy drums.

As kind of an old-school jazzer, I had dubious thoughts when I first heard about acid jazz. Then I heard a Pat Metheny album, which was a quartet of guitar, bass, drums, and turntables. I already knew and loved Metheny as a guitarist and as a writer. He's only like 28, but he's well established in the jazz world. This album was the craziest funk I'd ever heard, and they mixed in old school swing and all kinds of other good-old-school stuff, too. It was fabulous.

Other Acid Jazz artists include:

Abstract Truth
Afro Elements
Air
Alphabet Soup
A-one
Angel, The
Arrested Development
Art Ensemble of Chicago, The
Astro Groove
A Tribe Called Quest
Attica Blues
Auger, Brian
Ayers, Roy

Baecastuff
Belizbeha
Black Eyed Peas
Blakrayn
Brand New Heavies
Broun Fellinis
Buckshot LeFonque

Chilly Bob
Cinematic Orchestra
Congregation, The
Cookin'
Corduroy
Crystal Waters

Darius 50
Darkk Brothers
David Robbins Trio
Dee C Lee
De La Soul
Deee-Lite
D.I.G (directions in groove)
D-Influence
DJ Cam
DJ Krush
DJ Shadow
Dobson, Daryll

Esthero
Everything But The Girl

Family Stand
Fazzoletti
Freak Power
Freebase
Full Blown Kirk
Future Freedom Ensemble

Galactic
Garrison, Matthew Justin
GetAway People, The
Grape
Gravity Zone
Greene, Chris
Greyboy Allstars, The
Groove Collective
Guru
Guy Smiley Blues Exchange

Hero #7 collective
Higney, Angela
Hughes, Ben
Hunter, Charlie

Incognito
Indigenous Colors
ISOL8

Jaffa
James Taylor Quartet
Jamiroquai
Jaz Klash
Jazzanova
Jazz Poets Society
Jibe
Jones, Keziah
Jordan, Ronny
Juicehead
Jukejoint
Jungle Brothers
Junk

KGB
Kismet
Koop
Kooya Coup
Kruder & Dorfmeister
Kwame & a New Beginning


La Funk Mob
Lazoo
Level 42
Liquid Soul
Lovely Trees

Manifest Yesterday
Marden Hill
Market
Massive Attack
Masters At Work
M-BASE
MC Solaar
Medeski Martin & Wood
Mello-D & the Rados
Melvin Sparks Band
Menelik
Mezzoforte
Mi
Miller, Marcus
Moe's Kitchen
Monday Michiru
Morrison, James
Mother Earth
Motta, Ed

Nearly God

Oversoul 7

P-Hex
Planet Groove
Plunge
Polyester players
Portishead

Quiet Boys

Racli
Rad
Ray, Michael

Scenario 34
Sitesakamoto
Skunkhour
Smokin' Monkey
Solar System
Solsonics, The
Soul Sauce
Soul II Soul
Spinform
State of mind
St. Germain
Suite No. 3

Tab Two
Takero Ogata
Tante Hermann
Taylor, Lewis
Tenor, Jimi
That Phat
Thique
Towa Tei

United Future Organization

Vai-Mo
Vibrophonics

Wanted 4 Acid
West Coast Harem
What it is
Wheeler, Caron
Wilensky, Danny

whooee. thanks go to musicfolio.com and wharfinger's linebreaker.

This is a definition which has always puzzled me. Gilles Peterson (the DJ) is credited with coining the term as an alternative or extension of the Acid House craze that was sweeping the dance floors of the UK in the late 80s. But even as I sit here listening to a very funky George Benson version of Miles Davis's So What it is still not (to my mind) a well defined genre. Some would have you believe that the defining characteristic of Acid Jazz is that it is a fusion of various elements such as funk, soul and bossa nova alongside the more traditional jazz. Others would assert that it is the mixing of jazz with more modern progressive ideas such as hip hop, drum'n'bass or jungle and none of these retro ideas. Anyone care to help me out here?

I hear acid jazz growing out of fusion circa Bitches Brew, and reaching a local maximum in 1975 with the release of Miles' two double live albums Pangaea and Agharta, recorded 1 February 1975 at the Osaka Festival Hall.

Miles had been jamming with Jimi Hendrix, intending to record together. Jimi's early departure put the kibosh on that, but Miles was very interested in the distortion and feedback tones and timbres that he heard from Hendrix, and shortly set out to form "the hardest rock'n'roll band in America," as he put it. To play the sounds he was hearing Miles enlisted Pete Cosey to play lead guitar and guitar synth, Reggie Lucas on rhythm guitar, Michael Henderson on bass, Sonny Fortune on saxophones, Al Foster on drums and James "Mtume" Forman on percussion. Miles himself played trumpet of course, but also organ, cranked up to distort and then fed through a wah pedal.

I've never heard the day/night contrast some speak of in the two Osaka performances on Agharta and Pangaea (same day, matinee and evening). To me they both sound primordial: rumbling, driving heavy bottom with incredibly funky guitar from Reggie Lucas, and Pete Cosey's screeching, whispering, wailing leads soaring above it all. The two sets take the listener on the proverbial trip; Africa-tinged, with dynamics from loud to soft and hard to lyrical, but always swinging in straight-ahead 4/4 time.

You've never heard anything like it.

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