SO WHAT THE FUCK IS ACID JAZZ?
A band formed in London called the Brand New Heavies. A nightclub in Sheffield where there were no such thing as racist door policies. Ecstasy. The 80’s. What do all these things have in common?
ACID JAZZ was a run-off from the regular acid music that’d been progressively picking up pace across the pond in Chicago and New York throughout the 1980’s. It infused the stereotypical elements of acid (quick beats, the incorporation of electronics and, obviously, a bunch of drugs) with the funk & soul, reggae, and jazz music that’d been pushed to the forefront of music culture by black artists in the 60’s & 70’s.
The origins of the genre began in the depths of the DJ booths of London, where Disc Jockeys had gotten into the habit of spending hours sourcing and playing ‘Rare Groove’ tracks: coveted vinyls, imported from America, and revered by the clubgoers who were clamouring for the freshest music that they could possibly listen to. These Rare Groove tracks were often jazz and soul, and Gilles Peterson is largely known as the first guy to have the great idea of smashing those genres into the dirty acid house stuff that’d been gaining traction in the club scenes of the time.
Surprisingly, this worked. And thus, acid jazz was born.
It’s a funny thing, acid jazz. People tend to argue over whether it really falls under the acid genre, and people also argue as to whether it falls under the jazz genre. So what the fuck is it?
Well, in my opinion, acid jazz was essentially house music for the people who didn’t just want to do class-A’s and get obliterated in the corner of a nightclub. There’s a bit more substance and depth to the sound of it, which appealed to the sober ears of the time. Acid jazz follows the repetitive nature of acid (which is why people say it’s not jazz – no improv), but overlays the quick beats with atypical instrumentals that you’d expect to find in a classical band: brass, strings, vocals. It was also often played live. All in all, it’s a bit of a fusion genre that was cobbled together largely by accident, but somehow ended up being exactly what crowds at the time were looking for. And it is brilliant stuff that stands the test of time even now, forty-odd years on.
Many of the punters back in the 80’s would agree with my verdict. Venues like Jive Turkey in Sheffield were renowned for being packed out every time they played their jazz/ house fusion tracks, with the drugs and booze actually taking a backseat in the club consciousness. (This, bear in mind, was a little before that whole Second Summer of Love, Ecstasy-for-breakfast kind of attitude had taken hold of the UK scene.) All people wanted to do in the evening was dance.
It was this atmosphere which inspired some of the earliest pioneers in acid jazz to push further afield and really start experimenting; mixing the appealing new acid tracks that’d been trickling in from the USA with the tried-and-tested jazz samples which were currently all the rage, and knowing that their warped creation would send waves through whichever clubs they played it to. It was dance music with edge – culturally attuned and never seen before. It also had the benefit of being familiar to the crowds of black people who, at the time, were being pushed out of the scene by racist door policies that capped the amount of black people able to enter venues, or banned them entirely. At places like Jive Turkey, where the multi-race ownership meant there was no such thing as crowd segregation, the popularity of acid Jazz was both reactionary and revolutionary.
Around the same time that Sheffield was bouncing around in the definitely-not-meeting-fire-safety-regulations Jive Turkey, the same kind of energy was being felt around London clubs. Gilles Peterson, after a few years of successful DJ’ing, opened up the Acid Jazz record label with Eddie Piller, bringing in bands which had been growing within the scene for a while before that – the Brand New Heavies and Jamiroquai notably among them. Their charting success is what briefly pushed acid jazz from the fringe to the mainstream, achieving fame on both sides of the Atlantic.
Those bands have some undeniably awesome tracks between them. ‘Virtual Insanity’ by Jamiroquai definitely still holds the test of time, with an addictive rhythm you feel almost obliged to move to. If we’re picking favourites though, I’d say ‘Cantaloop’ by Us3 is a brilliant contender. They came onto the scene in 1992, and released the track two years later, to huge success. It embodies everything that acid jazz is as a genre, as well as generally just being a top beat to have on your playlist. Bang it on while you’re cooking. You’ll make the shittiest meal of your life because you were too busy dancing, but it’ll be worth it.
Acid Jazz eventually fell out of fashion in the later nineties, when the rise of techno and the growing preference of a Hacienda-style night overtook the more dance-oriented evenings that places like Jive Turkey were putting on. By the end of the millennium, it’d become so intertwined with other similar genres that it stopped being recognisable as a sound in its own right. It’s usually dubbed as neo-jazz or jazz-funk these days, which is a shame in my opinion. Doesn’t really have the same ring as ‘acid jazz’, does it? Nevertheless, its short tenure in the UK music conscious is both culturally integral and historically relevant, as it provided the inspiration for many more iconic tracks, genres and bands.
For anyone interested, there’s an excellent Spotify playlist on Acid Jazz that can be found here. If you want personal recommendations, I shall lovingly provide those too:
Cantaloop – Us3
Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) – Digable Planets
Funkin’ for Jamaica – Tom Browne.
All in the Mind – The Jazz Renegades
Let the Good Times Roll – The Quiet Boys
Come Together – Apostles
Beads, Things and Flowers – Humble Souls
Apparently Nothin’ – Young Disciples
Work - Gang Starr
