Customer Rating: 
Summary: Admirable
Comment: There can be no doubt that alto saxophonist Soweto Kinch and his musical cohorts (Tony Miller on drums, Michael Olatuja on drums and Femi Temowo on guitar) are a very talented and creative bunch. There can also be no logical argument questioning whether jazz and hip-hop make good bedfellows or not. The fusion is nothing new and Kinch is by no means the first jazz saxophonist to try and infuse the spoken word into his art form. This album particularly, reminds me of Brandford Marsalis' "Scenes In The City", where Marsalis provided a running commentary through the album and that was released way back in 1984. And as far as introducing jazz into rap music is concerned, A Tribe Called Quest practically made it their stock in trade. And let's not forget the fantastic Guru Jazzmatazz projects.
I also don't care particularly, whether the artiste concerned wants to do both, i.e. be a sax player and a rapper or whether he wants to be a sax player who gets a guest rapper in or a rapper who gets a guest sax player in. Whatever. For me it's about whether [the end product] works or not. Does the artiste concerned manage to marry to the two art forms in the right proportion and in a way that makes me want to spend my hard earned money on listening to him?
Well, my answer is yes and no. There are parts of this album - a narrative of a day in the life of a young man in a gritty urban jungle somewhere in Birmingham - that are a delight to listen to. Getting Moira Stewart [a highly respected and veteran newsreader here in the UK] to narrate the opening theme and a couple of the skits including the closing one, is pure genius for a start and the jazz tunes, ("The Mission", "Adrian's Ballad", "Marcus' Crisis", "Out There", "A Friendly Game of Basketball" and "The House That Love Built"), with help from Troy Miller on drums and Abram Wilson on trumpet, provide some of the best jazz I've heard, whether [it be] from this country or anywhere else. They are worth the price of the CD on their own.
And, thankfully, the skits and even some of the rap & vocal tunes are fun. "Love Gamble" is interesting although I find its beats rather challenging; "Ridez", I love; I also like "So!" and "Who Knows?"; "Padz" introduces us to 'Bianca Le Bubble', a [stereo]typical neurotic-sounding American journalist who provides pure comedy; "Expansion" is the closest we get to some soulful vocals and Femi Temowo playing the Nigerian wannabe rapper on "Everybody raps" is a hoot.
But there are other parts ("10.30 Appointment", in particular) that while well-intentioned, end up being nothing but headache inducing. The interplay between the young man and the "annoying woman" at the benefits office (both performed by Kinch, by the way) are inspiring but the beats played over them to these ears, just sound messy.
Essentially, the hip-hop aspect of this album leaves much more to be desired than does the jazz aspect and personally, I feel the guys need to be a bit more discerning with their beats. That said, I think in terms of musical creativity or artistic experimentation, this kind of thing is really laudable. But if Kinch intends to make a long-term career out of this, then I do have worries. The overlap between jazz in its pure form on the one hand and rap on the other, is pretty thin. Not many people are going to buy into this sort of thing because those who will be drawn in by his kind of rap are likely to be put off by the jazz. Likewise, the people who will love what he's doing jazz-wise are very likely to be put off by his rap. Personally, I'm won over and I think I might go and get his earlier album now after listening to this one. But as eclectic as my musical tastes are and as much as I might grow to love his work, unless something changes, I'll always be checking Kinch more for his jazz than for his hip-hop.
That said, I'll always admire a man who's not afraid to take risks. One critic wrote in a magazine recently - and I paraphrase - that only time will tell whether Kinch has created a true masterpiece here, and whether his execution matches his imagination. But, he went on to say, for his envelope-pushing ambition and sheer bravado, he is not to be faulted.
I couldn't agree more
(Originally posted on Amazon's UK site on 8 December 2006 and before I had bought or listened to Kinch's first album, Conversations With the Unseen, which I reviewed here back in May 2007).
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