So, What Are You Listening To NOW?

[rostasi]

I think it's still "neo-soul."

[JSngry]

Still?

[rostasi]

yeah, the style hasn't changed much in 30 years except for new technologies.

[JSngry]

What about when it's non-African- Americans doing it?

Just now, rostasi said:

yeah, the style hasn't changed much in 30 years except for new technologies.

Retro-Neo?!?!?!

[jazzbo]

Horace Silver Quintet and Trio “Blowin’ the Blue Away” Blue Note Japan SHM-SACD

[rostasi]

40 minutes ago, JSngry said:

What about when it's non-African- Americans doing it?

Example?

25 Neo-Soul Artists Reshaping Contemporary Soul in 2025

There's always the Swedish version:

 

[Rabshakeh]

16 minutes ago, rostasi said:

Example?

25 Neo-Soul Artists Reshaping Contemporary Soul in 2025

My problem with neo-soul is that, despite it being a distillation of numerous influences, it never really moved beyond the sound of the original greats like Erykah Badu and D'Angelo. Since then it has just basically been the same thing. 

[jazzbo]

John Coltrane/Archie Shepp “New Thing at Newport” Impulse Japan cd

 

[rostasi]

Well, those folks sit in the middle.
You had acid jazz influence, then someone like Meshell Ndegeocello,
then Badu and Jill Scott, then you had it connect more with hiphop,
then it connected (Frank Ocean, for instance) with alternative R&B, 

then...

[mjazzg]

4 minutes ago, rostasi said:

Well, those folks sit in the middle.
You had acid jazz influence, then someone like Meshell Ndegeocello,
then Badu and Jill Scott, then you had it connect more with hiphop,
then it connected (Frank Ocean, for instance) with alternative R&B, 

then...

...you have Sault

[rostasi]

21 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

...you have Sault

Yes!

[Rabshakeh]

28 minutes ago, rostasi said:

then it connected (Frank Ocean, for instance) with alternative R&B, 

then...

Do you see Frank Ocean as neo soul though? A quirky variation of mainstream R&B, surely. I like his first records a lot but never saw them as neo-soul. Perhaps my view of the genre is unnecessarily constricted. 

[JSngry]

46 minutes ago, rostasi said:

Example?

I still look at Monday as the high bar for this whole direction. Not that she invented it, just that she showed.....a LOT of possibilities.

They called her "Acid Jazz" then, but....really?

I'm also thinking about other people, such as United Future Organization, Kyoto Jazz Massive (at times), 4Hero (at times), JazzaNova, etc, And some of the people who did their remixes. None of them really broke through in America, but the did (sometimes) feature quite good African-American female(often) vocalists. Drummers have (thankfully) evolved to the point where they can do it live with or without additional technology.

So (once again) we've gotten a marketing term that creates a limited picture of what has really happened. And, dare I say, a little bit of racial pigeonholing that maybe works at cross-purposes to what might benefit the artists involved.

 

[rostasi]

Yeah, sure.
Folks like him and Solange, Anderson .Paak, Hiatus Kaiyote, SZA,
and so on have varying doses of neo-soul in what they do.
Highly constricted genres are a rare thing anymore.

[John Tapscott]

[Rabshakeh]

2 minutes ago, rostasi said:

Yeah, sure.
Folks like him and Solange, Anderson .Paak, Hiatus Kaiyote, SZA,
and so on have varying doses of neo-soul in what they do.
Highly constricted genres are a rare thing anymore.

You're naming a bunch of artists that I like but don't really see mentioned as neo-soul. But then, why not? Neo soul is really just a sub style of R&B so it is probably not helpful to be too definitive. 

[rostasi]

13 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I still look at Monday as the high bar for this whole direction. Not that she invented it, just that she showed.....a LOT of possibilities...

Yeah, but nearly all of the bands/people you mentioned are mainly Acid Jazz performers
(incl. Michiru) or NuJazz (except for 4hero which would be closer to Jazzstep or hardcore breakbeat).

Edited 10 hours ago by rostasi

[Rabshakeh]

In London there is a venue in Camden called the Jazz Cafe which was in my youth notorious for booking everything except for jazz bands. Instead it was always jazz-adjacent music: music that fairly clearly wasn't jazz but the musicians thought jazz was classy and wanted some of that image. Neo soul or jazz rap were the classic Jazz Cafe genres, and I still to this day hear neo-soul (as distinct from mainstream R&B) as 'Jazz Cafe music'. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Rabshakeh

[rostasi]

9 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

You're naming a bunch of artists that I like but don't really see mentioned as neo-soul. But then, why not? Neo soul is really just a sub style of R&B so it is probably not helpful to be too definitive. 

I don't know where "sub-style(s)" fit in this because it's this influence (influx?) of modern R&B meeting Soul with a hiphop groove with funky jazz instruments that makes it what it is ... and it doesn't have to have all of that in equal measures, so that might be why you were surprised to hear that Ocean might fit that style.

Edited 10 hours ago by rostasi

[jazzbo]

Calvin Keys “Shawn Neeq” Black Jazz/Real Gone cd

Arranged By – Calvin Keys
Bass – Lawrence Evans
Drums – Bob Braye
Electric Piano – Larry Nash
Flute – Owen Marshall
Guitar – Calvin Keys

[JSngry]

18 minutes ago, rostasi said:

Highly constricted genres are a rare thing anymore.

Increasingly meaningless labels, oth, seem to be exponentially thriving!

[rostasi]

14 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

In London there is a venue in Camden called the Jazz Cafe which was in my youth notorious for booking everything except for jazz bands. Instead it was always jazz-adjacent music: music that fairly clearly wasn't jazz but the musicians thought jazz was classy and wanted some of that image. Neo soul or jazz rap were the classic Jazz Cafe genres, and I still to this day hear neo-soul (as distinct from mainstream R&B) as 'Jazz Cafe music'. 

I remember jazz acts a-plenty that I'd read about in the British papers,
so I looked it up:

Quote

The Jazz Cafe has played host to such jazz musicians as: Jamiroquai, Sun Ra Arkestra, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Jimmy Smith, Abbey Lincoln, Ahmad Jamal, Archie Shepp, Eddie Harris, Cassandra Wilson, Mulatu Astatke, and many more too numerous to mention. It has hosted top-drawer funk, soul and disco artists such as Amy Winehouse, Ben E King, Leroy Burgess, Evelyn "Champagne" King, The Blackbyrds, Jocelyn Brown, Jean Carne and The Fatback Band, plus reggae artists including Lee Scratch Perry, Yellowman, The Skatalites, Max Romeo, Luciano, Horace Andy, Johnny Osbourne and Marcia Griffiths...

so maybe you missed them on the nights you went (?)

3 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Increasingly meaningless labels, oth, seem to be exponentially thriving!

Well, they're meaningful to some folks out there - mainly because the crossover influences
make the styles stray out of tight genres that some folks want.

[JSngry]

I mean, when did "Acid Jazz" become "Neo-Soul". like....just like that, boom. That is totally illogical on the face of the evidence. It seems like a pretty clear case of a logical, linear multicultural evolution.

But the word "Soul" brings it out of the global realm and into a very specific American frame of reference. Them Damn Dumb Americans at it again.

Now we can has marketing and now we can has things to be ok that weren't so much before.

There was a Monday interview online long ago (and long ago lost) where she said that when she was trying to get Verve to handle her releases in America that a BIG obstacle was that she considered her music Soul and Verve told her point blank no, you can't have Soul, Yellow don't have Soul. Call it something else. 

And that's as close to an exact quote as I can muster these days.

So you know, everybody all yeahyeahyeah one world coming together and all that shit, but the obstacles are deeply entrenched and incentivized to dumb down EVERY fucking thing.

And so they do.

 

 

[rostasi]

Acid Jazz was party music born in the mid-80s mostly out of London
with a more improv feeling mixing jazz, soul, and hip-hop with a stylish feel.

Neo-soul, OTOH, came out of Philly in the mid-90s and was/is less about
dancefloor moves and a lot about personal, intimate songwriting with 
serious influence from hip-hop's lyrical stylings and rhythm.

Racist attitudes from corporate moneymakers is a whole other thing tho
and a continuing "nadir" when it comes to the music biz.

Genre labels are kind of like old trail signs in a forest.
When the paths were simple, a sign pointing "Jazz" or "Rock" made perfect sense.
Now the forest has exploded into thickets and hybrid gardens,
and everyone’s building weird new paths, so yeah, the signs are messier.
But if you’re inside one of those new trails, the sign matters a lot.
It tells your little corner of the world where you are.
The explosion of styles isn’t just noise - it’s culture evolving in real time.

[JSngry]

It's blinding, not enlightening.

Philly, eh?

 

2003, in Germany.