Electro Acoustic Beats Sessions Vol. 6: jazz improvisation and a hip-hop pulse at Puzzle
Electro Acoustic Beats Sessions Vol. 6 announces a meeting of Abradab, jazz improvisation and a hip-hop pulse at Puzzle. The open jam-session format encourages musicians to exchange ideas and reconstruct live the jazz and funk familiar from hip-hop sampling.
In the late 1930s, as swing became an enormous business and major American cities rang with the orchestras of Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins, bebop was emerging somewhere in Kansas City. Through Charlie Parker’s genius and other visionaries, the new jazz reached Harlem, New York, where the ideas of Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke and Dizzy Gillespie crystallised at Minton’s Playhouse. These guys turned everything upside down. They brought a Copernican revolution to music. They revolutionised jazz. They not only replaced orchestras with small bands but showed that wild improvisation lies at this music’s heart.
When bebop was at its peak, musicians from different bands could often meet, jam together or challenge each other to musical duels. Playing collectively, they shared knowledge and tricks, learning from one another. This was what allowed the music to keep developing. If a newcomer had the confidence to step on stage, they could play even with jazz giants. This was how Miles took his first steps.
A similar idea underpins Wrocław's Electro-Acustic Beat Sessions; only the language of expression has changed, and technology has advanced. Musicians began reconstructing the deconstruction of jazz and funk previously carried out in hip-hop. Historians will decide whether Madlib, Robert Glasper or someone else was responsible…
Puzzle has become Poland’s Minton’s Playhouse, its stage bringing younger and older musicians together, formidable veterans alongside promising young cats. The sounds created there exist only in the here and now, and recorded sessions frequently carry descriptions such as “unknown trumpeter”. Who knows?! Perhaps one is you! Just drop in and try your hand. Listeners are also part of this unfolding history. Come along, so that in another 50 years you can say: “Yes, I went to EABS in autumn 2012. Incredible things were happening there.”
Event details
Electro Acoustic Beats Sessions vol.6
19 December 2012
Puzzle Club
Wrocław