Jazz Is Dead mainstay Adrian Younge brings new music to the Cornerstone
Noted hip-hop/soul producer and co-founder of the Jazz Is Dead project, Adrian Younge leads a 10-piece ensemble playing songs from his Something About April trilogy at the Cornerstone in Berkeley Tuesday night.
Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Younge made a name for himself with the orchestral jazz funk of his early group Venice Dawn, which released a collection of music in 2000. Younge spent some years practicing and teaching entertainment law, but he eventually turn his attention to music full time. Hs neo-blaxploitation soundtrack to the satirical comedy Black Dynamite in 2009 for Wax Poetics Records, the imprint associated with music journal of the same name that focused on vintage and contemporary jazz, funk, hip hop and more.
Recalling the braggadocious action films of Dolemite as much as classic films Shaft and Superfly, the movie became a cult hit partly on the strength of Younge's kinetic score. He would follow up with another instrumental effort that built upon the earlier ideas he had with Venice Dawn entitled Something About April which played like a psychedelic '70s soul soundtrack in search of a film. With those albums serving as calling cards -- both became sample favorites among producers -- he would find stead work collaborating with soul acts and hip-hop stars alike including singer William Hart of '70s R&B vocal group the Delphonics and Wu-Tang stalwart Ghostface Killah. The latter pairing Twelve Reasons To Die is still cited as a high point in both acts' discographies.
Younge first teamed with his future Jazz Is Dead collaborator Ali Shaheed Muhammad in 2014 on an album by Bay Area rap group Souls of Mischief. Muhammad was already established as rapper, DJ and producer with golden-era NYC hip-hop legends A Tribe Called Quest and a member of the short-lived R&B supergroup Lucy Pearl, but his partnership with Younge would prove incredibly fruitful as the pair made original film and television music, including the acclaimed soundtrack for the Netflix show Luke Cage in 2016. They also made recordings with their own group the Midnight Hour for Younge's Linear Labs imprint (also the name of the analog-focused studio he operates).
In 2016, Younge also produced Something About April II, a second installment of cinematic psychedelia that included vocal turns by Rafael Saadiq, longtime singer Loren Oden, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier, R&B/hip-hop vocalist Bilal and Israeli star Karolina.
More recently, Younge and Muhammad launched their ambitious Jazz Is Dead project. Initially focusing on live concerts in Los Angeles with such heavily-sampled luminaries as Roy Ayers and Lonnie Liston Smith, Jazz Is Dead has also brought some of those '70s jazz influences and inspirations into the studio to record full albums, including such giants as Black Jazz recording artists Doug and Jean Carn, saxophonist Gary Bartz, longtime Gil Scott-Heron collaborator Brian Jackson and Brazilian masters Azymuth, Marco Valle and João Donato as well as like-minded younger musicians like Los Angeles group Katalyst.
Los Angeles music fans had regular opportunities to experience the groundbreaking concerts live at the intimate Lodge Room in Highland Park, but the multi-media production company would eventually take the show on the road starting with "Jazz Is Dead: The Tour" in the summer of 2022, a jaunt that found Muhammad and Younge joined onstage by Jackson, Carn, noted Black Jazz bassist Henry Franklin (who has played with Ayers, Ornette Coleman, Willie Bobo and Stevie Wonder) and Katalyst as the house band. Subsequent tours have presented Brazilian legends Hermeto Pascoal, Arthur Verocai, Milton Nascimento and Marcos Valle with Azymuth, French jazz group Cortex, and most recently, a show paying tribute to spiritual jazz giant Alice Coltrane featuring her son Ravi and harp player Brandee Younger.
Despite being busy with JID productions, Younge has continued to issue solo albums -- including The American Negro in 2021, an unapologetic critique on the evolution of racism in the U.S. -- as well as collaborative collections like last year's Linear Labs: São Paulo, which compiled songs from a variety of forthcoming albums on the label featuring hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg, the aforementioned Bilial and the Brazilian-flavored trilogy closing effort Something About April III, set for release later in April. The composer and musician comes to Berkeley leading a 10-piece group including horns and strings plus vocalists on Tuesday to play the music from the Something About April trilogy and other recent projects at the Cornerstone.
Jazz Is Dead: Adrian Younge's Something About April Tour
Tuesday, April 1, 8 p.m. $31
The Cornerstone
