[Dixielandjazz] Hating Rap doesn't make it jazz, but what about "Jazz-Rap"?

[Steve Barbone]

I quite agree that hating rap doesn't make it jazz, and don't think I ever
said that it did. It was just one of the similarities between the two at the
they both were spawned.

Rap has rhythm, jazz has rhythm, another similarity. Rap even has melody if
one note repeats are melody. There are jazz compositions that rely on
repeated playing of one note also. Even the legendary Thelonious Monk wrote
one based upon one note repeats and rhythm. He would play when folks said
his music was too complicated and ask; "Is that too difficult for you to
understand," with a sly grin across his face.

A key ingredient of both, which many of us miss, or gloss over, is the
"message". Both have a message, and it is a similar one . . . freedom. I
think sometimes we tend to forget the message of both musical forms.

Do the above similarities make rap an extension of jazz? I don't know. But I
do know that to try and define "jazz" is an exercise in futility because
each of us has a different idea of what jazz is.

I certainly agree with Dan and Charlie that music, and/or jazz is fragmented
these days. I think that's why the Ken Burns series fell apart when it
reached the last 30 years of jazz history. We haven't figured it out yet.

The problem with Jazz & Rap may well be that most of us are unaware of a
fragmented music style called Jazz-Rap. Perhaps we might listen to some?

For further edification investigate:

_________

Jazz Rap
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jazz rap is a fusion of alternative hip hop music and jazz, developed in the
very late 1980s and early 1990s. Known for intellectual, often
socio-political or Afrocentric lyrics and jazz beats (sometimes performed by
a live band, instead of sampled), jazz rap has not become a huge mainstream
success; it instead sells primarily to a small specialized fan base.

(snipped) see more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_rap
------
OR Consider this from <http://www.mmguide.musicmatch.com/>
 
Jazz-Rap 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. While the rhythms of
jazz-rap came entirely from hip-hop, the samples and sonic textures were
drawn mainly from cool jazz, soul-jazz, and hard bop. It was cooler and more
cerebral than other styles of hip-hop, and many of its artists displayed an
Afrocentric political consciousness, complementing the style's historical
awareness. Given its more intellectual bent, it's not surprising that
jazz-rap never really caught on as a street favorite, but then it wasn't
meant to. Jazz-rap styled itself as a more positive alternative to the
hardcore/gangsta movement taking over rap's mainstream at the dawn of the
'90s, and concerned itself with spreading hip-hop to listeners unable to
embrace or identify with the music's increasing inner-city aggression. As
such, jazz-rap found its main audiences in places like college campuses, and
was also embraced by a number of critics and white alternative rock fans.
Afrika Bambaataa's Native Tongues posse -- a loose collective of New
York-based, Afrocentric rap groups -- was the most important force in
jazz-rap, including groups like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and the
Jungle Brothers; Digable Planets and Gang Starr were other notable early
artists. During the mid- to late '90s, as alternative rap moved into a
wider-ranging eclecticism, jazz-rap was not often pursued as an exclusive
end, although the Roots frequently incorporated it in their
live-instrumentation hip-hop

Cheers,
Steve Barbone