Search - Various Artists :: Impulsive: Revolutionary Jazz Reworked

Classic jazz redone correctly

C. W. Hall | Atlanta, GA USA | 01/25/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The best way I've found to review albums which purport to re-do classic material is to compare song-for-song the old with the new. The question isn't whether one is better than the other, but rather, whether the new adds anything to the old. Essentially, is it a positive addition to the legacy of the material it reinterprets?



For this project, Verve opened the vaults and the catalog of Impulse records to a handful of today's top producers and DJs. Those chosen few got to poke around and pick a song to remix. But what did they do with the source material?



Sa-Ra Creative Partners intensify the already frenetic pace of "A Helluva Town". The addition of a dynamic drum `n' bass percussion line deepens the groove and creates higher peaks and lower valleys than are found in George Russell's original.



To my mind, RZA takes on the biggest challenge by facing off with the formidable and already well-known swing of Charles Mingus' "II B.S." RZA's recent focus on movie scoring is apparent as he slows the initial tempo and proceeds to build the audio equivalent of a brilliant chase scene. To use the same metaphor on each version, Mingus' scene would feature a normal street for just a moment before the entire chase cuts around the corner already at full speed. RZA implies the same chase, but begins at an earlier point with a lone protagonist first noticing there might be someone following him.



Mark de Clive-Lowe makes his mark on "El Toro" by essentially editing out Gabor Szabo's guitar and focusing instead on the rock solid bass line and Charles Lloyd's flute. By doing so, he completely does away with the spaghetti western feel that Szabo lends to the original. By picking and choosing from Lloyd's solo and adding a touch of keys and synth here and there, de Clive-Lowe comes away with a beautiful backing track for Bembe Segue to scat across.



Perhaps to make up for Szabo getting chopped out of de Clive-Lowe's piece, Prefuse 73 takes the guitarist's "Mizrab" for a spin. The producer could not have picked an original more suited to his signature style. Szabo's guitar meshes perfectly with Herren's trademark "blips and beeps" and comes away sounding as if someone were spinning the radio dial in time to some hip-hop drums.



Gerardo Frisina's reworking of Dizzy Gillespie's "Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac" is a study in impatience. Acknowledging the difference between a modern dancefloor and a `60s-era jazz club, Frisina adds bigger more driving percussion and a standard house drum under Gillespie and saxophonist James Moody's lackadaisically comic vocal interplay. While retaining the original's strong instrumentation, Frisina waters down the song's personality for the sake of keeping the dancefloor moving.



When fully one thing or the other, DJ Dolores remix of Clark Terry & Chico O'Farrill's "Spanish Rice" is impressive. It's the transition that's rough. Dolores builds out of the original into a feast of samples and dynamic percussion. However, something about the transition from the rhythm of the original to the remix doesn't work. Once clear of the transition, the remix is impressive, but that rough spot detracts from the whole.



Hip-hop producers generally feel like "more drums" is the answer for everything. In general, I agree with them. Chief Xcel takes this philosophy, adds it to a stripped down arrangement of Archie Shepp's "Attica Blues", and comes away with a perfect mash-up of old and new.



If it came out today, Pharoah Sanders' "Astral Traveling" would probably be categorized as an ambient record, so it's no surprise that the remix mines that same area. A more prominent bass line and updated percussion move this from the acid and weed soaked haze of 1970 to the ecstasy and weed soaked haze of today's electronic scene.



Some people love him, but to me Yusef Lateef is an acquired taste. With that in mind, I haven't acquired a taste for "Bamboo Flute Blues." It would be a tough test to ask Kid Koala to make a song I like out of one I don't, and he doesn't. Both original and remix challenge my attention span to the breaking point.



The remix of Oliver Nelson's "Stolen Moments" is easily the most transforming on this album. Re-imagined as an orchestral piece and beautifully executed by Loyola University's Chamber Orchestra, Nelson's work takes on a more sweeping, all-encompassing scope. A truly masterful piece.



A presentation of Impulse would be incomplete without at least one selection from John Coltrane and so he appears, although not quite as you would imagine. "At Night", an unpublished poem written by Coltrane is given life under the guidance of his son, Ravi. Julie Patton gives voice to the legend's words and Ravi pays suitable musical homage to his legendary father. And so a modern look at "The House that Trane Built" ends with the master builder himself."

Like St Germain, this is just more fun than Jazz should be a

o dubhthaigh | north rustico, pei, canada | 11/04/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Someone's gonna have to break this down for Wynton: It's fun, Mate! Oh yeah, remember that?! Anyway, the DJs and producers here take tracks you're likely to know, if you have an avocation for jazz, and give them, if you will, a different spin. And it's infectiously a hoot! Of course, Dizzy Gillespie would have revelled in the joyful tricks effected on his track, but you can't help but see the wry smile on all of these musicians, including Mingus, on the way these tracks have found another life. Like turning a diamond just so so atht it's facets cast a new brilliance. It all winds up with a reverent and inspirational reading of a poem by John Coltrane, set to music by his son. It's just perfect!

Keep this up and Impulse might just breathe life back into Jazz a second time. It reminds me of the old Teilhard de Chardin quote: "When man learns to harness the power of love, he will have discovered fire for the second time." Coltrane's poem is all about the peace such discovery brings the heart. Git it in your soul, as Mingus would have told you. You, too, Wynton."

Excellent and You Get Exactly What the Title of the CD Promi

KC | Northern CA | 02/02/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This CD might disappoint those who have the Verve Unmixed series since those CD's are more pop/accessible and they make for a cool, hip party CD - old favorites that everyone already knows merely updated to the 21st century.



This is not really that kind of a party CD unless most of your parties are of the revolutionary kind :-)



These tracks are less pop/standard jazz that was already revolutionary and a bit belligerent in its day - though of course - cool and hip it its own right ... now updated to the 21st century with trip hop beats, they still stand the test of time. The tracks are all interesting, intriguing and still sound un-compromised and unbending to the whims of music fashion.



This CD is not for everyone but if you like your jazz with an unvarnished edge, and updated with splashes of trip hop and acid jazz - then you're in for a treat.



About the only disappointment is the low number of tracks."