There’s something not quite right about watching a 41 year old Hip-Hop artiste stripped to a white singlet, denouncing ring-tone rappers and celebrating the end of the bling era. Yes he’s Guru, yes he was half of legendary Hip-Hop group Gang Starr and yes he’s responsible for the fantastic Jazzmatazz volumes, but seeing him on stage is like watching a distant uncle dance at a family wedding. The crowd love it and the Jazz Café is packed, but Guru’s safe Hip-Hop is nothing more than that, and his delivery is sadly well off the mark, despite an anonymous a cappella mid set that’s supposed to prove otherwise.
The hype surrounding Guru’s evening of Jazzmatazz is however intense and as self styled super producer Solar takes the stage to introduce the man himself (visibly waiting to make his entrance at the top of the stairs) the anticipation is growing. Then it happens; Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal takes the mic “We’re gonna take you on a beautiful journey tonight” and gets straight down to business. The set is big, raw and promises so much from the start that things are looking up, but it’s ruined by a choreographed sales pitch, promoting the pairs record label 7 Grand and their latest release ‘The Timebomb: Back To The Future Mixtape’ that continues throughout the night and peppers the entire set.
There are some memorable moments, among them and taken from ‘Jazzmatazz Volume 4’ and the aforementioned accompanying mix-tape, ‘State Of Clarity’, ‘Living Legend’, ‘Too Slick’, ‘Jazzy Wayz’ and ‘Who Got It On Lock’ which features the fantastic turntable and vocal abilities of Doo Wop. Other highlights include an exclusive remix of Gym Class Heroes ‘Cupids Chokehold’, ‘Surviving The Game’ and the classic Donald Byrd soaked ‘Loungin’ taken from ‘Jazzmatazz Volume 1’. But that’s another annoying part of their stage show; according to Guru and Solar, every other track they play is a ‘classic’, believe the hype and they’ve more than enough to rival Reebok and ancient Greece put together, sadly the reality is far from the truth.
The set lasts a mammoth 90 minutes, but is filled and padded out with countless shout out’s, big ups and crowd / artiste interplay; so much so that the crowd start to leave before Guru has returned to the stage for his encore… they’re not missing much, just a few more tracks including ‘Stand Up (Some Things Will Never Change)’ and plenty more self serving back patting. What is clear from tonight’s performance is that David Scott (guitar, flute, clarinet, keys) and Brownman (trumpet) deserve huge appreciation for their musical skills as does Doo Wop; but it’s a brave call to say whether Solar and Guru deserve the same.
The whole point of the Jazzmatazz project was to blend genres, push boundaries and remain timeless. While that is still arguably the case, Guru’s performance, on stage at least, has aged and is completely reliant on a reputation first forged nearly twenty years ago rather than current merit.
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- I attended this concert last night and I thought it blended hip hop, jazz and funk to good effect. Guru does have many minor classics what proves this is the vast amount of material he didn’t recite i.e. ’moment of truth.’His constant plugging of the new album and record label was more endearing than annoying. I’ve never seen an artist come back after the performance and flog his cds from a suitcase. Overall I thought Guru was very generous and the musicianship on display
- I was at that show, and - having seen Jazzmatazz many times before - continue to feel the strongest part of the show was Brownman. An incredible trumpet player - for me, he’s the jazz in jazzmatazz. Without him there it would have just been another adequate hip-hop show. And I have to agree with the previous poster: seeing Guru flog discs out of a suitcase was disheartening at best. I would love to see a Gangstarr reunion. Solar isn’t cutting it.
- What I wanted to say there before it got cut, was, that the musicianship on display was a pleasure to watch and as stated above Brownman has to be given a lot of credit for this. I think Solar was good, but let’s not forget that this type of hip hop is out of fashion now. People can talk about ’real hip hop’ all they want but let’s face it the 80s and 90s was hip hops golden age. With the deaths of Tupac, B.I.G. and Big L we are left with the vacuous Kanye West, Jay Z and
- Surely to denounce Jazzmatazz as ”safe” is to miss the point. You can’t compare Jazzmatazz to Gang Starr, unless you’re a ****ing idiot.
Wait... did I just answer my own question?
- It’s sad this dude can’t get behind a genuine independent artist. Sounds like he LIKED the music just not the fact that GURU chooses not to have a major pimpin his shit (what does that make the artist?) & piggybacking on that payola ride, but instead GURU’s showin true heart by going his own way. So listen to him tell u what he’s got for you, buy a cd & download some of the shit he’s telling you about, or not, & if the crowd’s having a good time m
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~ by Jessie 4/7/2008 Report