NuJazz Revolution

What is NuJazz? According to Wikipedia Nu Jazz is an umbrella term coined in the late 1990s to refer to music that blends jazz elements with other musical styles, such as funk, soul, electronic dance music, and free improvisation. Also written nü-jazz or NuJazz, it is sometimes called electronic jazz, electro-jazz, e-jazz, jazztronica, jazz house, phusion, "neo-jazz" or future jazz.

Tony Brewer adds "The songs are the focus, not the individual prowess of the musicians. Nu Jazz instrumentation ranges from the traditional to the experimental, the melodies are fresh, and the rhythms new and alive. It makes Jazz fun again."

Often when asked of the style of music that I compose, I have to give pause for a moment and think of a term that describes what I do primarily without pigeon-holing the music too much. Jazz is much more than a style of music, it's a culture much like Hip Hop. But Jazz means so many things to so many different people. To some Jazz traditionalists, Jazz music was only created during the 1940's through 1960's with the advent of Bebop and Hard bop. Go to a "Jazz in the Gardens" concert in your local town and you're likely to hear the likes of Common, Jill Scott, Amel Larrieux and Musiq Soulchild. When hearing my music some have said it sounds like New Age or Film music.

So enter the shades of grey that we all live in as nothing is ever really just black and white. NuJazz music blends many elements of traditional Jazz, while embracing electronic music elements from Downtempo, Ambient, New Age and groove elements from its cousin Acid Jazz.

Nu jazz emerged from the use of electronic instruments in production in the 1970s work of such luminaries as Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Ornette Coleman. Hancock's early 1980s work with Bill Laswell, in particular, such as the album Future Shock, anticipated the style in its incorporation of electro and hip-hop rhythms. Beginning in the late '80s, many hip-hop musicians worked in the jazz rap style -- among them, Gang Starr, The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, and Nas. Also in the 1980s, many house musicians took inspiration from jazz, particularly post-bopand jazz funk. In the mid-'90s and early 2000s, musicians from the downtempo scene, St Germain, DJ takemura, Perry Hemus and Jazzanova among them, began to delve more deeply into jazz. In the same period, intelligent dance music producers -- most famously Squarepusher and Spring Heel Jack, and later London Elektricity and Landslide -- took a similar interest. Techno musicians, such as Laurent Garnier, Carl Craigand his Innerzone Orchestra project, have also touched on nu jazz. Some figures from the digital hardcore and breakcore scenes, notably Alec Empire, Nic Endo, and Venetian Snares, have explored a harder, noiser variant on the style. A decade later, some dubstep producers, such as Boxcutter, also explored electronic jazz. - Wikipedia

Recently I created a new online community for artists and fans of NuJazz music called the NuJazz Network. NJN was born out of an attempt by me to find artists in the Jazz and Electronic genres to collaborate with for a compilation CD. I searched various places and communities online and realized that music descriptions were all over the place. The Jazz online communities either fell into the Smooth Jazz or Traditional Jazz styles, and electronic genres were kind of sandwiched in between. Also because of the stigma that the name "Smooth Jazz" has to musicians in the traditional Jazz community, most Smooth Jazz artists labeled their music NuJazz.

This brought me to Wikipedia to get better clarity on some of the music style descriptions that were being tossed around. After reading the entries for NuJazz, I felt compelled to create a community and champion this style of music. I am an electronic musician and have been since I first picked up the clarinet in grade school and hammered out new tunes on my Casio keyboard. If electronic music is your thing and you have a passion for Jazz, feel free to mingle with friends whom are also part of the NuJazz revolution.

Visit NuJazz Network