Rebirth of the Cool
By Norm Dixon
One of the more interesting and welcome developments in contemporary music is the evolution of what has been tagged "acid jazz". While it's yet to garner a large audience in Australia, the success of the Jazz Dance during Sydney's Sesqui Jazz Festival earlier this year indicated there are enough discerning punters out there who want something with more musical substance than the repetitive mind-deadening thump of the house/hip hop dance music.
Acid jazz blends bebop/hard bop jazz improvisation with the rhythm and beat of hip hop and rap, soul and reggae as well as the technological wizardry of sampling and sequencing to create a dance music you can also sit down and appreciate.
Through this medium, the much-neglected but truly wondrous sounds of the likes of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus and many others who are inspiring the new acid jazz artists are being discovered by a new generation.
London has became the home of the acid jazz scene, and young black people there have become its staunchest partisans, seeing it as reclaiming their once vibrant dance music from the music industry executives' market-driven formulas.
Groups such as the Young Disciples, with their progressive and anti-apartheid recent album Road To Freedom, are representative of the acid jazz movement's renewed interest in the heritage of black music.
Sydneysiders are to be given their second opportunity to hear this innovative new music at "Rebirth of the Cool — Jazz Dance 2" on Friday, May 22, in the Art Deco temple that is the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay.
The award-winning Australian saxophonist and former member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Dale Barlow, has assembled a 10-member mega-jazz-funk group, The Thing From 13th Street. This will be Dale's final fling before heading off to New York to record a new album. Also on the bill is Sydney's own band of "acid jazz-funksters", Dig.
On top of many hours of live jazz, deejays will be playing jazz, funk and soul dance numbers until 3 a.m. There will be special screenings of rare jazz films and the videos of latest London acid jazz, a chill-out room, espresso lounge and copious amounts of other appropriate beverages.
Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. They can be purchased from the following record shops around Sydney: Birdland, Folkways, Fish, Good Groove, Floppy Disk and Recycled Records. Phone Chris on (02) 356 4622 for more information.