Fresh Artistry: Karriem Riggins Expands Jazz, Informs Hip-hop

On Wednesday I dropped by the historic Oakland Yoshi's venue for the first time to peep Karriem Riggins introduce his new quintet and blend some mad decent jazzified hiphop with Pete Rock. A veritable young lion in the jazz world and a much sought after beat conductor on the rise in the hiphop world, Riggins is displaying some impressive talent and unique skill for crossing the two monstrous genres.

If you want to get some background, I wrote a brief article on Riggins for the SFBG. Rachel Swan at the East Bay Express layed down some more details about his life and work.

I recommend peeping his Hella International mix. Madlib, J-Rocc, and seemingly Riggins as well have been pushing a style of looping jazz beats, cutting them in and out in a fragmented blunted funk aesthetic.

Listen: Karriem Riggins Live at Hella International - Stones Throw

You can also cop his fresh, and ridiculously impressive mix-tape, featuring original production, remixes, and jazz loops, Kaleidoscope. Expect a debut CD soon, whether it will be the Karriem Riggins Quintet or a full length of the Jahari Massamba Unit, we'll have to wait and see.

Sun Ra: Calling Planet Earth

The cosmic jazz legend, Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount), is an enigmatic force embedded in technicolor myth. He has said himself to have descended to these lands from Saturn. Aliens from a distant rock disclosed to Sun Ra the power of music and soulful vibration. In other dimensions, music can wash clothes, heal diseases, free enslaved peoples. Galactic myth builds, saturates, transforms, and unravels before us.

In a series of interviews, films, and live events Sun Ra called without a touch of irony for the isotope teleportation of black people to another planet where self-affirmation, love, and community may reign. For Sun Ra, "Black" is no simple color term, but designates all persons oppressed or systematically frustrated, all living beings seeking spiritual rejuvenation and emphatic liberation.

In 1971, Sun Ra was given the chance to call planet earth through the role of an academic. He expounded his afro-arkestra philosophy to a UC Berkeley classroom in the African American studies department. My dear friend Edgar from World with Words has graciously researched the syllabus and found the list of books required for the class study. One might not have better luck actually finding these luminous scrolls on earthly soil. Nonetheless, thanks to Edgar, the music syllabus still circulates.

Sun Ra expounds, calls, and descends. For your consideration, a triplet of videos in tribute to the Sun Ra dynasty.

4onephonics Unleashes Boogie with Dam Funk

Over the last few years living in the Bay Area seeking out Hiphop and its multitudinous offspring, I became quickly familiar with the innovative triathlon skills of the DJ collective, 4onefunk, paying dues in the scratching, battling, and mixtape circuits. Taking their steez to the next level in 2005, DJs Teeko and Max Kane established the 4onephonics band with drummer Austin Bohlman and keyboardist Colin Brown from the Mononphonics seven piece jam band.

The group utilizes two turntables as instruments, operated by mix wizards Teeko and Max Kane, to manipulate prerecorded elements as well as synthesize spontaneous sounds with the drum machine. Bohlman carries the groove forward with a heavily syncopated percussion that soaks in the break beats while Brown's cascading keys jazz up a groovy melody. Occasionally the horns of Monophonics join forces to stretch the capabilities of the group's organic swaying music even further. The final product is a powerhouse funk group informed just as much by the heavy grooves of Tower of Power as Herbie Hancock and the Scratch Pickles.


However, last night at the Elbo Room I witnessed 4onephonics like never before. Opening a set for the newly signed Stonesthrow records breakthrough, Dam Funk, 4onephonics unleashed a side developing project that blew the roof off the sucka'. Hooked up fully with deep boogie vinyl, spacey synth heavy keys, a sliding bass thump, and even a vocoder, 4onephonics constructed a sticky, grinding atmospheric noise that filled up Elbo Room's top floor with head nodding awe and sweaty writhing.

I must have been sleepin' on it for awhile, because sure enough, 4onephonics' myspace page showcases a couple tastes of their new boogie inspired joints. The low rider anthem, "Gfunkin on the C1," cruises steady with a clapping boom bap that lets the gurgling synth pop keys sink their chords thickly into your skin. Moving towards the spacier tip, "Controller ONE take ONE" totes a pummeling drum lick, whinnied along by scratching that transforms the prerecorded vinyl into a chopped up cosmic melody that sounds almost like a futuristic saxophone that secretes sex.

There's also a touch of the live shit, where you can really hear how Teeko and Max Kane cut up unchartered tuntablist territory, making previously unheard patterns of sounds.

4onephonics opening attuned my ears to a higher boogie refinement to get down with Dam Funk. Dropping joint after joint of boogie funk bangers, Dam Funk schooled the crowd on the names of each song in the most generous way possible, sharing the love by calling out names without any sense of elitism.


Dam Funk just released his first 12'' on Stones Throw called "Burgundy City," and plans to release a full length album by the end of the year. He grounds his music on the heritage of boogie but calls his own production, "future funk", keeping the music organic by using analog machines and special chords that avoid some of the synth pop soulless robotism that ravages much of disco.


Since I'm still learning about these the history of boogie funk I found the interview with Dam Funk in the last issue of Wax Poetics to be real informative. He drops the knowledge on the rock bottom foundation that everyone who loves this music needs to know.

As far as boogie, early Slave and Cameo are examples of popular boogie. That was the second wave of funk music. James Brown and Sly Stone created the first generation. Boogie is the sound of slap bass, loud claps, melodic chords, and synthesizers. Boogie followed the last gasp of disco.

Boogie includes releases on labels like Prelude, Sam Records, late Waste End Records, late Brunswick, and U.K. labels like Elite. Boogie-ologists will mainly tell you it's from the '80s, and it encompasses Italo disco as well.

You can cop some dope mixes by Dam Funk on Stones Throw's podcast #28 and the recently dropped One Day Later set. I have yet to find any of his original production to download, so if you wanna' hook us all up, the comment section is open.

Final Notes: Be on the look out for 4onefunktion events monthly at the Elbo Room (including guest appearances at Free Funk Friday each second Friday).

AND: 4onefunk reconstructed a Dilla track. Amazing. Dilla's influence is unstoppable.

Red Astaire doin' James

A couple weeks back I hesitantly scoped out Frisco's newly promoted Hiphop / Soul / Funk "Money Shot" weekly in an Irish bar on Polk St. suffering more identity problems than a biracial child adopted by a troubled lesbian couple. Actually, my scoping out of the event was limited to five feet away from the door where I peered through two bouncers asking my lint filled wallet for ten dollars.

I must admit that the title "Money Shot," referring to a cum splatted Benjamin visage (or was it just a black eye), on top of the ridiculously overdrawn "Saints and Sinners" anthem of s O' Reilly's Holy Grail Irish Pub did not really, let's say, motivate me to do anything but get the hell outta' there.

Last night my feel for "Money Shot" took solace in the integrity of Massive Selector's promotion, bringing to the Bay such huge successes as the Stevie Wonder party and last week's "Happy Feet" featuring Bobbito and Rich Medina (who didn't show but Bobbito and Hakobo held down the cuts like nobody's business).

A James Brown tribute headlining Sweden's remixing production wizard, Red Astaire, AKA any child's nightmare wonder, Freddie Crugar, (he also goes by the birth certificate name Fredrik Lager) at an Irish pub, aligned with murals of a haloed Rick James sandwiched in-between Richard Pryor and Kurt Cobain, all illuminated by Byzantine stained glass portraits? Now I'm fucking inspired. That's when identity trouble gives birth to the transformer genius of some cultural amalgamation.

Here's the low down on Mr. Lager. Red Astaire gets the big ups from the breakers, the club junkies, and the DJ nerds world wide who are drawn into his smooth beat conducting techniques that whirl your feet oh so naturally into nu-jazz popcorn.

Schooled in the 80s by the diverse dusty grooves he listened to while working at Space, a legendary record import shop in Stokholm, Red Astaire cultivated an intense taste for funk, Hiphop, disco, Latin, and electro. He cemented his wave twisting production style together with a Hiphop sensibility for dirty break beats balanced by the soulful lyricism that gets the party crackin' in the three feet high and risin' way.

Around '94, Astaire joined the Raw Fusion Records label, an influential Swedish label created by Mad Mats, and would release consistent limited edition EPs, 12 inches, and singles throughout the decade. Astaire didn't get much love on the international circuit until his "Follow Me" single, a jazzy liberation joint sliced with clashing percussion propelling melodic chimes, and a powerful impact verse from Method and Redman, released on G.A.M.M. records in 2003. Ubiquity then released his full length album, Soul Search, in 2006 to widespread success in Canada and the US.


I got my hands on 2007's Nuggets for the Needy, which includes a couple break beat nu-soul club bangers on top of "Follow Me." A definite nugget is Astaire's edit of Angie Stone's 2002 hit "I Wish I Didn't Miss You", entitled in ode form to the singer, "Love to Angie." I agree completely with Oliver Wang that this joint is sure to get someone in the crowd to poplock instantaneously, those drums are too irresistible.

In the spirit of James Brown tributes, I also couldn't stop playing "The Wildstyle," an Apache style bongo driven rhythm that cuts up Brown's flustering "Soulpower" lyricism with some grandmaster technique scratching straight outta' Flash's S. Bronx bedroom. The rebirth of the wildstyle? I'm ready.

Snatch Red Astaire's Nugget's for the Needy (2006) G.A.M.M. records.

If the download hits the spot, don't forget to support the artist.