Jazz, hip-hop or soul, no matter the entry level, you'll come out an FJP fan
author: John Book, Music For America
By design... well, maybe this band aren't stereotypically by design, but with a name like Future Jazz Project, one might ask about their perspective of jazz, and what exactly does the future have in store? Perhaps the future is now, and it will take another generation to figure out what's been happening now? Make sense? Mmmmaybe not, but FJP's True By Design is an album that looks at the future of jazz today by recognizing what happened in the past to create a sound that should be dominant in today's music marketplace, but isn't.
This Colorado-based band bring together a love for jazz, hip-hop, and soul to come up with something that is never unbalanced. They treat things equally by going back and forth between influences, and are capable of doing all of them without one being weaker than the other. Musically, it seems as if they are a long lost cousin of the early 90's acid jazz movement, but discover that in 2007, they're not lost. Instead, their fans are scattered everywhere, looking for each other. Combine one part Crown City Rockers with a bit of The Roots, a slice of Ill Again dopeness and a pinch of that Groove Collective smoothness, and what you have is a live band in every sense of the word. When they want to drop rhymes, Big House is there to do it with intensity and knowledge, it's not about mindless chants. Then you have a singer who goes by the name of Selina Albright and I have to ask this: where has this woman been all of my life? Her voice is soothing, calm, soulful, touching, emotional, and I could look in a thesaurus right now but I have to say, this woman needs to be heard. When she handles background vocals, she lightens up the edginess of Big House. When she handles the lead vocals, all ears must be on her. Not sure if Future Jazz Project is her main project, but if she's open to going solo and taking off with her own career, backed by the musicians in this band, she would be huge.
Again, this is a band, and I have to mention the musicians here. Casey Sidwell (bass), Greg Raymond (keyboards), Dameion Hines (drums and turntables), and Greg Harris (vibraphone, Xylosynth, and Juno80) are tight, when a groove is locked there is no stopping them and even when one wants to get loose for a few bars, they're locked with each other knowing exactly when to carry the song to the next section. The vibe here is fun, and one can't get enough of it. It has been said that a good portion of today's younger jazz musicians cannot avoid the influence of hip-hop, so while they learn about jazz and its rich history, they are also guided by the head nod and the boom bap. What you end up hearing is a continuation of that language, and acceptance of the tradition to keep on playing, and the listener never wants this music to stop. If that was the case, this group would have about 2300 CD's each year. The title indicates they are True By Design, but the design itself is neverending, and always changing. They are true to the spirit of music, and whether you go into this as a jazz fan or a hip-hop head, you're going to come out of it a FJP fan.
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