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Jazz rap
Jazz rap (also known as jazz hop or jazz hip hop) is a fusion of jazz and hip hop music, as well as an alternative hip-hop subgenre, that developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. AllMusic writes that the genre "was an attempt to fuse African-American music of the past with a newly dominant form of the present, paying tribute to and reinvigorating the former while expanding the horizons of the latter." The rhythm was rooted in hip hop over which repetitive phrases of jazz instrumentation, such as the trumpet, double bass, etc., were placed. The groups involved in the formation of jazz rap included A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, De La Soul, Gang Starr, and Jungle Brothers.
During the 1970s, the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron placed spoken word and rhymed poetry over jazzy backing tracks. There are also parallels between jazz and the improvised phrasings of freestyle rap. While it drew from these disparate threads, jazz rap did not coalesce as a genre until the late 1980s.
At this time, the jazz community was divided between those who appreciated traditional styles and others who embraced newer forms like smooth jazz. This period also marked a significant shift in jazz's cultural positioning, elevating it to the status of "serious art music." Influential figures like Wynton Marsalis played a pivotal role in this transformation, advocating for a return to traditional jazz values.
Jazz rap's emergence can be seen as an attempt to elevate rap music's status by associating it with jazz's cultural capital and was seen as an alternative to dominant rap subgenres like gangsta and pop rap. This association not only enriched the musical texture of hip-hop but also provided a platform for social and political commentary, aligning with jazz's historical role as a voice for African American experiences and struggles.
In 1989, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie's 1952 "Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy (Wild Pitch, 1989), and their track "Jazz Thing" (CBS, 1990) for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues, further popularized the jazz rap style. In 1992, Eric B & Rakim used wood bass on "Don't Sweat the Technique".
Digable Planets' 1993 release Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was a hit jazz rap record. It sampled the likes of Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Additionally, it spawned the hit single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)".
In 1993, Us3 released Hand on the Torch on Blue Note Records. All samples were from the Blue Note catalogue. The single "Cantaloop" was Blue Note's first gold record.
Post-WWII swing and modern jazz had fused with the introduction of Black appeal radio, which attracted a younger audience through its reliance on jive idioms, rhyming, and cadence-laden rap verses. Dizzy Gillespie had pointed to The jives of Dr. Hepcat and rhyming D.J. Daddy-O Daylie as key to popularizing modern jazz. The rise of Top-40 radio on the strength of the rapping DJs in this period of radio's rebirth among black youth led to the wider use of language and syntax popularizing rap. Muhammad Ali's phrasing to the press in the early part of his career was born of listening to black radio of the 1950s, which was often white radio announcers speaking slang "jive" and imitating black announcers while withholding the fact on air of their backgrounds. Pioneering DJs Al Benson, Nat D., and Jack the Rapper all used rhyming, the dozens and jive talk to pepper their broadcasts and were widely copied by white DJs like John Richbourg, Gene Nobles, and Bill Allen during the 1950s, and whose influence on James Brown and other godfathers of rap was formative. Bebop was the backing track that modern jazz credits with being the foundation black appeal radio is based on.
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Jazz rap AI simulator
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Jazz rap
Jazz rap (also known as jazz hop or jazz hip hop) is a fusion of jazz and hip hop music, as well as an alternative hip-hop subgenre, that developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. AllMusic writes that the genre "was an attempt to fuse African-American music of the past with a newly dominant form of the present, paying tribute to and reinvigorating the former while expanding the horizons of the latter." The rhythm was rooted in hip hop over which repetitive phrases of jazz instrumentation, such as the trumpet, double bass, etc., were placed. The groups involved in the formation of jazz rap included A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets, De La Soul, Gang Starr, and Jungle Brothers.
During the 1970s, the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron placed spoken word and rhymed poetry over jazzy backing tracks. There are also parallels between jazz and the improvised phrasings of freestyle rap. While it drew from these disparate threads, jazz rap did not coalesce as a genre until the late 1980s.
At this time, the jazz community was divided between those who appreciated traditional styles and others who embraced newer forms like smooth jazz. This period also marked a significant shift in jazz's cultural positioning, elevating it to the status of "serious art music." Influential figures like Wynton Marsalis played a pivotal role in this transformation, advocating for a return to traditional jazz values.
Jazz rap's emergence can be seen as an attempt to elevate rap music's status by associating it with jazz's cultural capital and was seen as an alternative to dominant rap subgenres like gangsta and pop rap. This association not only enriched the musical texture of hip-hop but also provided a platform for social and political commentary, aligning with jazz's historical role as a voice for African American experiences and struggles.
In 1989, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie's 1952 "Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy (Wild Pitch, 1989), and their track "Jazz Thing" (CBS, 1990) for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues, further popularized the jazz rap style. In 1992, Eric B & Rakim used wood bass on "Don't Sweat the Technique".
Digable Planets' 1993 release Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was a hit jazz rap record. It sampled the likes of Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Additionally, it spawned the hit single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)".
In 1993, Us3 released Hand on the Torch on Blue Note Records. All samples were from the Blue Note catalogue. The single "Cantaloop" was Blue Note's first gold record.
Post-WWII swing and modern jazz had fused with the introduction of Black appeal radio, which attracted a younger audience through its reliance on jive idioms, rhyming, and cadence-laden rap verses. Dizzy Gillespie had pointed to The jives of Dr. Hepcat and rhyming D.J. Daddy-O Daylie as key to popularizing modern jazz. The rise of Top-40 radio on the strength of the rapping DJs in this period of radio's rebirth among black youth led to the wider use of language and syntax popularizing rap. Muhammad Ali's phrasing to the press in the early part of his career was born of listening to black radio of the 1950s, which was often white radio announcers speaking slang "jive" and imitating black announcers while withholding the fact on air of their backgrounds. Pioneering DJs Al Benson, Nat D., and Jack the Rapper all used rhyming, the dozens and jive talk to pepper their broadcasts and were widely copied by white DJs like John Richbourg, Gene Nobles, and Bill Allen during the 1950s, and whose influence on James Brown and other godfathers of rap was formative. Bebop was the backing track that modern jazz credits with being the foundation black appeal radio is based on.