Back in 1991 this Various Artists compilation was stuck on my turntable for what seemed like months. The acid jazz scene had been born and in the USA jazz flavoured hip hop was briefly the cutting edge, partly led by Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues film in 1990. This all fed into the emerging trip hop scene too I think. The Rebirth Of Cool was a fourteen track compilation opened by Gang Starr's Jazz Thing, with a swinging beat and pulsing bassline from DJ Premier and Guru's effortless rhymes recounting the history of jazz and its place importance now/then.
Jazz Thing
There are many fine moments among the rest of the songs and artists- X Clan's Raise The Flag, MC Mello, Dream Warriors, Stetsasonic's brilliant Talkin' All That Jazz, Galliano and Young Disciples from London's Acid Jazz label and Young MC. Between 1991 and 1998 4th And Broadway put out a further seven volumes and it lost its way a bit. I bailed out after Volume 2 but this one, the first, was a definite winner.
2 comments:
Rebirth Of Cool is such a great compilation! I was deeply into the Acid Jazz/Jazz Funk/Jazz House movement from that time period. New York club night run by Giant Step, gave a platform for the movement to really get a grip on NYC nightlife for a few amazing years.
The best night I think I had during this era was Brand New Heavies' Heavy Rhyme Experience which started out as a fairly intimate club date at S.O.B's in SoHo during the summer of 1991. What it turned into was a completely amazing one off with Q-Tip and Phife along with MC Serch turned the encore into a long and wonderful Jazz/Rap jam session.
I was discussing Heavy Rhyme Experience just earlier this evening elsewhere.
Post a Comment