Nu Jazz Cool

Description

"In case you're still confused about the 'Nu Jazz' tag," concludes the blurb on the back cover of this compilation, "leave it to Satchmo: 'If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know!'" So let this reviewer confess to being an ignoramus: after listening to this two-disc, two-and-a-half-hour-plus set, and scanning the liner notes, he's still confused about what exactly "Nu Jazz" is. One thing's for sure, though: it's not jazz music, or at least not what most people think of as jazz. It's more like electronic-oriented, club-oriented dance music that happens to have some jazzy aspects, often though not always produced in Italy. (These Italian efforts are described more than once in the annotation as "bossa nostra," without much elaboration as to what that term constitutes either.) The vague thematic definition and linkage (frequent traits of releases on Union Square Music's labels) wouldn't be such a problem if the music was excellent, or even if the music was as good as the opening track, Nicola Conte's "Bossa Per Due." That's a cut that actually lives up to the spirit of whatever "Nu Jazz" might be, with a way-cool cinematic bossa nova-jazz groove that could pass for a genuine late-'60s or early-'70s soundtrack recording, garnished with Indian-sounding licks and early 21st century electronic touches. But much of the rest is not only far from the same league, but not especially jazzy. Sometimes, the selections are fairly standard early-2000s-sounding dance cuts motored by electronic beats and decorated by echoing-into-space vocal phrases. The jazz is supplied by some vaguely jazz-R&B-fusion like instrumentation and singing, though frankly some of the tracks have very little of those flourishes, and could pass for pretty generic (if funk-flavored) dancefloor fodder. It's not all as faceless as that, sometimes making prominent use of the bossa nova/Latin/tropical beats and melodies hinted at by that "bossa nostra" tag, occasionally hitting neat riffs and rhythms, as Ennio Styles' "Zouk" does. Some of the songs are actual jazz classics like "Round Midnight" and John Coltrane's "Naima," though the cover of the latter (by Soul Bossa Trio) twists it into almost unrecognizable chilly, jagged electronic beats and textures. For the record, not all the music is of Italian origin; the liner notes aren't precise in their documentation in all instances, but there are also artists here from England, Japan, Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Belgium. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi