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JAZZ SAMPLING HIP HOP: A VIEW OF THE EXPANDED RHYTHM SECTION AND THE
MUSICAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN MUSICIANS AND MACHINES
By
Molly Kaylynn Redfield
Bachelor of Music – Music Education
Bachelor of Music – Jazz Performance
California State University, Sacramento
2017
Master of Music – Jazz Studies
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
2019
A doctoral project submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance
School of Music
College of Fine Arts
The Graduate College
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
May 2022
ii
Doctoral Project Approval
The Graduate College
The University of Nevada, Las Vegas
April 6, 2022
This doctoral project prepared by
Molly Kaylynn Redfield
entitled
Jazz Sampling Hip Hop: A View of the Expanded Rhythm Section and the Musical
Interactions Between Musicians and Machines
is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance
School of Music
Andrew Smith, D.M.A.
Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan, Ph.D.
Examination Committee Chair Vice Provost for Graduate Education &
Dean of the Graduate College
Thomas Leslie, M.Ed.
Examination Committee Member
Jonathan Lee, Ph.D.
Examination Committee Member
David Loeb, M.M.
Examination Committee Member
Louis Kavouras, MFA
Graduate College Faculty Representative
iii
Abstract
Jazz Sampling Hip Hop: A View of the Expanded Rhythm Section
and the Musical Interactions Between Musicians and Machines
by
Molly Kaylynn Redfield
Dr. Andrew Smith, Examination Committee Chair
Associate Professor of Music
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
This document presents a study on a musical fusion that I term “jazz/hip hop.” The study
presents a historical overview of jazz/hip hop origins beginning with 1960s beat poets to jazz/hip
hop artists emerging in the early 2000s. Modeled after Phillip Tagg’s and John Fiske’s semiotic
methodology and William C. Banfield’s African American Cultural Theory and Heritage Model,
the methodology defines the musical and cultural aesthetics of jazz/hip hop. Interviews from
jazz/hip hop artists are presented; justifying the use of hip-hop aesthetics and countering the
argument that commercial elements are added for mainstream recognition. I examine that
samples musically interact with live rhythm section performers, giving transcriptions to aid the
development of relevant drum set and bass performance techniques. Finally, the document serves
as an introduction to jazz hip hop for musicians and scholars alike.
iv
Acknowledgments
This document culminates four years of research that was inspired by one of my first professors,
Dr. Sarah Lappas and the students in my first Jazz Appreciation course. Throughout this process
I have received immense guidance and support from my committee: Dr. Andrew Smith, Dr.
Jonathan Rhodes Lee, Professor Thomas Leslie, Professor Dave Loeb, and Professor Louis
Kavouras. Thank you for your constant feedback and opportunity to grow as a musician,
educator, researcher, and person.
I would like to personally thank my mentor, Chris Davis. Thank you for your constant
support and advice as I advance through my career. Studying privately with you is one of the
highlights of my time at UNLV.
Lastly, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my family for their
encouragement, love, and unwavering support. Thank you, Ashley, Kevin, and Yaya. And to my
partner Sydny, thank you for all of your patience and love throughout this process—I could not
have completed this path without you. And lastly, to my parents Dr. Clay and Loralee Redfield,
thank you for the many phone calls and motivation to keep going!
v
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iv
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii
Chapter 1 Jazz/Hip Hop History ..................................................................................................... 1
Overview of Jazz and Hip Hop ................................................................................................... 1
Predecessors of Jazz/Hip Hop ..................................................................................................... 3
Jazz/Hip Hop Projects Today .................................................................................................... 10
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 14
Chapter 2 Musical Codes and Aesthetics ...................................................................................... 15
Jazz Elements ............................................................................................................................ 16
Rap Elements ............................................................................................................................ 19
Hip Hop Elements ..................................................................................................................... 27
African Elements ...................................................................................................................... 35
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 41
Chapter 3 Adding Hip-Hop Aesthetic ........................................................................................... 43
Why Hip Hop? .......................................................................................................................... 43
But Is It Selling Out? ................................................................................................................ 51
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 56
vi
Chapter 4 The Expanded Rhythm Section .................................................................................... 58
The Use and Meaning of Samples ............................................................................................ 58
Bass and Drum Lines ................................................................................................................ 72
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 82
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 84
Appendix A: Artists Producing Jazz/Hip Hop .............................................................................. 88
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 90
Discography .................................................................................................................................. 93
Curriculum Vitae .......................................................................................................................... 96
vii
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Chord progression from “I Stand Alone”(2013) by Robert Glasper ........................... 18
Figure 2.2 Chord progression from “Afro Blue” (2012) arranged by Robert Glasper ................. 19
Figure 2.3 Choir sample from Kamasi Washington’s "Street Fighter Mas" (2018) ..................... 20
Figure 2.4 Drum set loop from “Pig Feet” (2020) by Terrace Martin ......................................... 21
Figure 2.5 Bongo loop from “Pig Feet” (2020) by Terrace Martin .............................................. 21
Figure 2.6 Bass line from “Street Fighter Mas” (2018) by Kamasi Washington ......................... 23
Figure 2.7 Bass line from “Freeze Tag” (2020) by Terrace Martin .............................................. 23
Figure 2.8 Album covers of Robert Glasper album Fuck Yo Feelings (2019), Slim Thug’s album
Boss Life (2013) and Tupac Shakur’s Live at the House of Blues (2005) .................................... 29
Figure 2.9 Brass and Boujee (2018) Album Cover ...................................................................... 29
Figure 2.10 Call-and-response pattern from "Afro Blue" (2012) arranged by Robert Glasper .... 37
Figure 2.11 Four-bar groove looped in “First Responders” (2020) by Terrace Martin ................ 39
Figure 2.12 Intro to “Freeze Tag” (2020) by Terrace Martin ....................................................... 41
Figure 4.1 Call-and-response between melody and sampled flute from “Afro Blue” (2012) by
Robert Glasper .............................................................................................................................. 64
Figure 4.2 Flute line from the introduction of “Afro Blue” (2012) by Robert Glasper ................ 64
Figure 4.3 Call-and-response between Robert Glasper soloing and sampled voice from “Lift
Off/Mic Check” (2012) by Robert Glasper .................................................................................. 66
Figure 4.4 Drum and samples groove heard on "Pig Feet" (2020) by Terrace Martin ................. 68
Figure 4.5 Phrase punctuation from "Black Radio" (2012) by Robert Glasper ............................ 69
Figure 4.6 Phrase punctuation from “Bells (Ring Loudly)" (2019) by Terri Lyne Carrington .... 70
viii
Figure 4.7 Instigation from “Lift Off/Mic Check” (2012) by Robert Glasper ............................. 72
Figure 4.8 Break beat from "Impeach the President" (1973) by the Honeydrippers .................... 74
Figure 4.9 Break beat from "It’s a New Day" (1973) by Skull Snaps .......................................... 75
Figure 4.10 Break beat from "I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby" (1974) by Barry
White ............................................................................................................................................. 75
Figure 4.11 Drum pattern by Chris Dave on "Afro Blue" (2012) ................................................. 75
Figure 4.12 Drum pattern by Terri Lyne Carrington on "Bells (Ring Loudly)" (2020) ............... 75
Figure 4.13 Generic drum set swing feel ...................................................................................... 76
Figure 4.14 Elvin Jones’s improvised line on John Coltrane’s first chorus of "Afro Blue" ......... 76
Figure 4.15 Chis Dave’s comping behind Erykah Badu on "Afro Blue" (2012) .......................... 76
Figure 4.16 Generic walk line over F blues .................................................................................. 77
Figure 4.17 Bass line from "Don’t Look Any Further" (1984) by Dennis Edwards .................... 78
Figure 4.18 Paul Jackson’s bass line from "Chameleon" (1974) by Herbie Hancock .................. 78
Figure 4.19 Ron Carter’s bass line and Q-Tip’s rap from "Verses From the Abstract" (1991) ... 80
Figure 4.20 Derrick Hodge’s bass line on “Be (Intro)” (2005) .................................................... 81
Figure 4.21 Derrick Hodge’s bass line on "Afro Blue" (2012) .................................................... 81
Figure 4.22 Elin Sandberg’s bass line on "Come Sunday" (2015) ............................................... 82
1
Chapter 1 Jazz/Hip Hop History
In the twenty-first century, a new jazz fusion emerged that I term “jazz/hip hop.” Jazz/hip hop
combines cultural, musical, and timbral elements that listeners identify as “jazz,” with other
elements that they identify as “hip hop.” The term “jazz/hip hop” reflects the method of studying
established jazz artists producing music that is influenced by hip hop culture and rap music.
This chapter outlines the history of jazz/hip hop showing the development of combining
jazz and hip-hop musical aesthetics. The historical study begins with 1960s beat poets who
delivered rhythmic speech over accompanying live rhythm sections. Then, in the 1980s and
1990s, rappers created jazz-rap projects that featured choruses of rapping and improvised
instrumental solos placed over sampled bass and drum track loops. Simultaneously, 1990s jazz
artists experimented with hip-hop musical aesthetics by performing looped improvised lines
played by acoustic rhythm sections and included a chorus of rapping into the solo sections. This
historical study ends with the 2000s, when jazz/hip hop artists began to emerge. These musicians
expanded the harmonic and melodic language of their pieces and embedded samples into the
accompaniment of the rhythm section.
Overview of Jazz and Hip Hop
Jazz and hip hop are two separate styles of music with their own distinct histories, innovators,
and styles. Jazz began in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries in musical
communities led by Black Americans. Its roots are in work songs, field hollers, ring shouts,
spirituals, and early country blues forms. Jazz is characterized by syncopation, improvisation,
and self-expression, emulated by deliberate deviations in pitch and guttural expressions (i.e.,
moans, wails, bends, and slides). As a musical style, jazz constantly evolves, due to stylistic
2
innovators and societal oppressions faced by Black Americans. With its large number of
contrasting sub-styles, “jazz” is considered a broad term applied to improvisational music that
has specific elements of syncopation and often a specific time-feel that cannot be defined by
duple or triple subdivision. These specific elements are commonly referred to as a “groove” or
“swing feel.”
1
Hip hop is a cultural phenomenon that began in the 1970s in New York City’s South
Bronx. Due to the building of the Cross Bronx Expressway in 1955, a project spearheaded by
Robert Moses, Black and Latino populations were displaced. As a result, the South Bronx was
marred with poverty, drug epidemics, violence, and urban decay.
2
Amidst this environment,
block parties run by local DJs emerged. Using turntables and mixers, DJs simultaneously
controlled two copies of the same record, manipulating sampled looping of drumbeats and bass
lines lifted from funk, disco, and R&B records. By touching the records, they created ruptures or
“breaks” in their loops cueing audience members to “b-boy” (commonly referred to as “break
dance”). To gather crowds, DJs worked with emcees, who rapped and spoke over the looped
beats. These elements of looping, beat creating, and rapping form the foundation of musical roots
in hip-hop culture.
1
I draw my definition of jazz from the following scholarship: Benjamin Bierman’s Listening to Jazz, Mark C.
Gridley’s Jazz Styles and Concise Guide to Jazz, and Kevin Whitehead’s Why Jazz?: A Concise Guide.
2
Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005),
10–15.
3
Hip-hop culture consists of four elements: 1.) graffiti; (“graffiti writing”) 2.) DJs; 3.) b-
boys (“break dancers”); and 4.) rap.
3
Rap is the most recognized element of hip-hop culture.
Tricia Rose defines rap as, “A form of rhymed storytelling accompanied by highly rhythmic,
electronically based music.”
4
This music is characterized by a chorus featuring rap, placing the
drums in the sonic foreground, boosting low frequencies, repetition created through looping, and
the layering of sampled recorded sounds (including sound effects, spoken word, melodic lines,
harmonic progressions, drumbeats, and bass lines), which creates a rhythmically complex
soundscape. The terms “hip hop” and “rap” are commonly interchanged; however, “hip hop”
refers to the subculture, which has its own vernacular, dress, and cultural values, while “rap”
refers to the music derived from hip-hop culture.
5
As a style, rap has grown into an
internationally recognized musical art form and has saturated commercial markets.
Predecessors of Jazz/Hip Hop
Jazz/hip hop history begins with the early collaborations between beat poets and jazz musicians
in the late-1960s and early-1970s. Poets and spoken word groups, such as The Last Poets and Gil
Scott-Heron, placed spoken word or rhymed poetry over improvising jazz combos. An example
of this collaboration is heard on The Last Poets’ songs “Jazzoetry” and “Bird’s Word” from their
3
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan
University Press, 1994), 27.
4
Ibid, 2.
5
Ibid, 26.
4
1972 album Chastisement.
6
Both songs include an improvising jazz trio of bass, percussion, and
saxophone. These musicians provide traditional accompaniment, referred to as “comping,”
behind rhymed poetry that tells the history of jazz, jazz innovators, and the importance of jazz in
the fight for equality among Black Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. These poets
influenced the 1980s to 1990s jazz rap movement, including both the political nature and
rhythmic flow of a rap.
7
In the 1980s, a subgenre of rap began to form known as “jazz rap.” Jazz rap is
characterized by the sampling of jazz albums or the use of live jazz musicians on hip-hop
projects. From 1986 to 1993, referred to as the “Golden Age of Jazz Rap,” jazz rap became a
prominent sub-genre of rap to counter mainstream Gangsta Rap.
8
According to Aja Burrell
Wood,
Examples of this trend include Cargo’s Jazz Rap, vol. 1 (1985), Gang Starr’s single
“Words I Manifest” (1989), Stetsasonic’s “Talkin’ All That Jazz” (1988), A Tribe Called
Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got)” (1991), Digable Planets’ Reachin’ (A New Refutation of
6
The Last Poets, Chastisement (Blue Thumb Records, 1972).
7
David Toop, The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop (Boston: South End Press, 1984), 19.
8
Justin A, Williams, “The Construction of Jazz Rap as High Art in Hip-Hop Music,” The Journal of Musicology 27,
no. 4 (2010): 435–36, https://doi.org/10.1525/jm.2010.27.4.435.
5
Time and Space) (1993), Nas’s Illmatic (1994), as well as the work of The Roots, Guru,
Common Sense, Madlib, Fat Jon and Dilla.
9
Furthermore, Keith Elam, stage name Guru, produced a series of jazz rap albums from 1993
through 2008 titled Jazzmatazz, featuring prominent jazz musicians like Donald Byrd and
Branford Marsalis. However, these albums were not considered successful fusions of jazz and
rap. Ericka Blount explains:
Early attempts to fuse jazz and hip-hop weren’t always successful. Rap artist Guru’s
Jazzmatazz album, which features Ramsey Lewis and Donald Byrd, is typical: the hip-
hop rhythms and jazz elements never gel; they’re merely tacked together. Several other
collaborations featuring hip-hop artists and jazz musicians have been unsuccessful,
failing to do justice to either form of music. Not only does the jazz musician generally
find his role limited, the hip-hop artist sometimes comes off sounding more conservative
than he would when left to his own bass-driven devices.
10
What musicians and critics like Blount find lacking in jazz rap is a true integration of jazz
elements in the beat (the sonic background) of rap. Instead, jazz elements, like improvised solos,
9
Aja Burrell Wood, “We Got the Jazz: Next Generation Jazz, Hip Hop and the Digital Scene,” Sounding Board,
2015, https://ethnomusicologyreview-ucla-edu.ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/content/we-got-jazz-next-generation-jazz-
hip-hop-and-digital-scene.
10
Ericka Blount, “Jazz Meets Hip-Hop,” JazzTimes 28, no. 3 (April 1998): 44.
6
have been inserted into various parts of the song, disjunct from the rapper’s flow (the rhythmic
delivery and phrasing of the lyrics) and beat.
11
From the early 1980s to early 2000s, jazz musicians also experimented with blending jazz
and hip-hop musical elements, with six notable examples by Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Greg
Osby, Brandford Marsalis, The Roots, and Roy Hargrove. The earliest of these examples is
Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock, released in 1983. This album experimented with adding specific
hip-hop elements, such as scratching and sampling, behind Hancock’s comping, improvising,
and melodies. Hancock shares that his influences were from a hip hop mixtape given to him by
his godson. He said,
I decided to ask my godson, Krishna Booker, what he was listening to…. I don’t
remember everything that was on the tape, but one thing really stuck to me: a song called
“Buffalo Girls” by the English artist Malcolm McLaren…. McLaren had collaborated
with a pair of DJs and on the record, they created a rhythm by moving a vinyl record
back and forth on a turntable, making a scratching sound with the needle…. This was
fresh, the idea of creating rhythm with that sound. Right then I knew that I wanted to use
scratching on my next record.
12
11
William C. Banfield discusses jazz rap and why rappers added jazz in “The Construction of Jazz Rap as High Art
in Hip-Hop Music,” arguing that rappers added jazz codes, musical elements recognized by the audience as jazz
(i.e., walking bass lines, saxophones, trumpets, the harmon mute), to elevate rap as a “high art” and appeal to a white
audience.
12
Herbie Hancock, Possibilities (New York: Viking, 2014), 237.
7
Future Shock is the second-best-selling jazz album of all time, and its song “Rockit” won a 1984
Grammy Award and five 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. Additionally, at the 1984 Grammy
Awards, Hancock performed “Rockit” live with two turntablists and himself on keytar.
A second experimentation example is Miles Davis’s album Doo-Bop, which he recorded
in 1991, in collaboration with hip-hop producer Osten Harvey Jr., known as Easy Mo Bee. Davis
recorded six songs on the album before he died. Easy Mo Bee compiled the album’s three other
songs—“High Speed Chase,” “Fantasy,” and “Mystery (Reprise)”—with trumpet tracks Davis
recorded in 1985 for his unreleased album Rubberband (later released in 2019). Doo-Bop
featured looped bass, drum, and piano or guitar tracks with Davis’s unique timbre of a harmon-
muted trumpet playing melodies and improvising solos. Additionally, tracks such as “Blow”
feature pre-recorded samples of sound effects and people speaking, in addition to rap choruses.
Doo-Bop was not well received among critics; however, it received one 1993 Grammy Award.
A third experimentation example is Greg Osby’s 3-D Lifestyles released by Blue Note
Records in 1993. In a unique twist, rappers provide the main melodic content while Osby
responds musically with improvised lines on the alto saxophone. Additionally, Osby contrasts
sections of his songs with hip-hop musical aesthetics of sampled bass and drum tracks with a
rapper, against a traditional rhythm section playing straight-ahead swing with samples layered on
top, while Osby solos and counters lines with both groups. An example of this mixing is heard
throughout the title track, “3-D Lifestyle.”
The fourth experimentation is found on Branford Marsalis’s 1984 crossover album
Buckshot LeFonque, named for the musical group he led. Unique to this album is the use of jazz
arrangements that utilize a frontline of jazz all-stars including of Roy Hargrove on trumpet,
Marsalis on multiple saxophones, and Delfeayo Marsalis or Matt Finders on trombone, supported
8
by a backline of rotating musicians including the following: Kenny Kirkland and Greg
Phillinganes on keyboards; Darryl Jones, Robert Hurst, or Victor Wooten on bass; and David
Barry or Kevin Eubanks on guitar. Also unique to this album is the use of sampled drum tracks,
provided by DJ Premier, layered on top of live drum tracks, as heard on “The Blackwidow
Blues.” With additional use of sampled sound effects and scratching, a highly rhythmic
environment was created. Furthermore, each arrangement works like a jazz head chart, with a
stated melody and an expanded solo section featuring multiple instrumentalists and then
restatement of the melody. Also, like their beat-poet contemporaries, LaFonque features poetry
recorded and written by an established poet: Maya Angelou.
The fifth pivotal experimentation is the 1995 album Do You Want More?!!!??! by The
Roots. The Roots are a Philadelphia-based group founded by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and
Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter. The Roots are long-time producers of jazz/hip hop and are
recognized as successful jazz and hip hop artists. This is for four reasons. First, The Roots are
still producing jazz/hip hop albums today instead of only experimenting with the crossover of
jazz and rap in the 1990s before navigating to other styles. Second, The Roots refer to their
music as “hip-hop jazz,” instead of “jazz rap” like their predecessors.
13
For example, on the first
track of Do You Want More?!!!??!, titled “Intro/ Something Goin’ On,” the lyrics to the intro rap
are:
And you are all
You are all
13
The term “hip-hop jazz” is not used to describe the fusion of jazz and hip hop because The Roots are a hip hop
group using jazz elements in their music.
9
About to witness
Some organic hip-hop jazz
Third, the album is recorded with jazz musicians interacting live with pre-recorded samples
instead of samples being layered on top after recording. This sets The Roots apart from the
process of production hip-hop producers used when creating jazz rap.
14
Lastly, The Roots were
recognized as a stand-alone jazz group performing at the 1995 Montreux Jazz Festival in
addition to being recognized as a hip-hop/rap group. For example, their song “Clones” from
Illadelph Halflife (1996) reached top five on the rap charts while the album made the Billboard
200 chart. The Roots still produce jazz/hip hop albums today.
The final example is Roy Hargrove’s album Hard Groove recorded in 2003 with his
group The RH Factor. Prior to recording this album, Hargrove performed on multiple jazz rap,
hip hop, and rap albums including collaborations with Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, and Common.
Similar to The Roots, Hargrove uses an acoustic rhythm section to create the beat behind
rappers, melodic horn sections, improvised solos, and singers. Furthermore, he uses a more
traditional jazz instrumentation in his frontline with alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, and
trumpet, who are featured both individually in solo sections and in sections of collective
improvisation. Furthermore, his drummer and bassist simplify their lines, emulating hip hop beat
tracks while improvising lines with a drum machine.
Each of these albums paved the way for more jazz/hip hop artists to emerge in the early
2000s. The timbres that influenced modern jazz/hip hop artists are the use of acoustic rhythm
14
David Dye, “The Roots: Hip-Hop Goes Live,” NPR, September 13, 2006.
10
sections emulating hip-hop drum and bass tracks, samples acting as a participating member of
the rhythm section (in lieu of adding them after the recording the musicians), and the use of
rappers in the front line.
Jazz/Hip Hop Projects Today
The transition from jazz artists experimenting with rap to jazz artists producing jazz/hip hop
projects is blurred, like many evolutions in musical styles. Musical elements jazz/hip hop artists
preserved from their predecessors include the use of live musicians performing on acoustic
drums, bass, and piano or guitar to provide the beat behind melodies and rappers, as opposed to
using drum machines or sampled bass lines. Furthermore, DJs and producers are included in the
process of producing their projects. Unlike their predecessors, jazz/hip hop artists include hip-
hop samples created for the project rather than sampled from pre-existing recorded music into
the rhythmic atmosphere of the pieces. This is possible because of the advancement of
technology, including recording techniques and creation of samples through digital audio
workstations (DAWs) such as Ableton Live. Additionally, while early projects looped short
chord progressions, jazz/hip hop artists use complex harmonic and melodic language derived
from modern jazz. The jazz/hip hop artists discussed below are only rhythm section
instrumentalists, because this study focuses on rhythm section members and their performing
practices. Furthermore, I chose these artists because they have produced multiple jazz/hip hop
albums, as opposed to artists who release singles or stand-alone jazz/hip hop projects without
returning to the jazz/hip hop style in later works. (For a comprehensive list of artists who
produce jazz/hip hop see Appendix A.)
11
Robert Glasper (b. 1978) is a composer, arranger, pianist, and bandleader. Glasper is
important to the progression of jazz/hip hop because of his use of live rhythm section members
creating looped improvised lines and embedded pre-recorded samples heard beneath verses,
choruses, and solo sections. His first jazz/hip hop album is Black Radio, recorded in 2012 by his
group The Experiment. It features Chris Dave on drums and Derrick Hodge on Bass. “Black
Radio debuted at number fifteen on the Billboard 200, four on the hip-hop/R&B charts (after
Rihanna, Tyga … and Drake), and it debuted number four in digital sales after Adele and Kid
Cudi…Black Radio broke musical ground by being played on [popular and R&B] radio both day
and night.”
15
Black Radio also won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album.
What sets apart Black Radio from Glasper’s earlier projects is the use of samples within
the sonic scaping of the rhythm section. For example, on the introduction to “Lift Off/ Mic
Check” we hear the drums, piano, and bass loop two bars with multiple sampled sounds of laser
noises, manipulated voice clips, and other electronic noises embedded within the rhythm section.
This provides the beat for Shafiq Husayn’s rapping. Following Black Radio, Glasper has released
multiple jazz/hip hop albums including Black Radio 2 (2013), Collagically Speaking (2018),
Fuck Yo Feelings (2019), Dinner Party (2020) Dinner Party: Dessert (2020), R+R=Now (2021),
and Black Radio III (2022). Additionally, he has started other jazz/hip hop projects with rappers
Lonnie “Common” Lynn (their group is August Greene), Kendrick Lamar, Patrick “9th Wonder”
Douthit, Mac Miller, Jusitn “Big K.R.I.T” Scott, and Kamaal “Q-tip” Fareed.
16
15
John Ephland, “Robert Glasper: Let It Blur,” DownBeat, August 2012, 42.
16
“Robert Glasper,” Blue Note Records (blog), https://www.bluenote.com/artist/robert-glasper/.
12
Terri Lyne Carrington (b.1965) is a jazz drummer, composer, producer, educator, and
bandleader. In contrast to The Experiment, Carrington’s rhythm section members do not limit
their improvised lines to strictly repeated loops. Instead, they borrow from the jazz idiom by
variating their loops with fills (discussed and illustrated in Chapter 4). Carrington has been
awarded the National Educators Association Jazz Masters Award and is a three-time Grammy
Award winner for her albums The Mosaic Project (2015), Waiting Game (2015), and Money
Jungle: Provocative in Blue (2013) in the instrumental jazz category, where she was the first
female recipient and nominee. Carrington’s newest album, Waiting Game, recorded by her group
Social Science in 2019, “explores heavy topics like politics, racism, sexuality, and police
brutality.”
17
Social Science performs live with a full rhythm section, DJ, singer, and rapper. In
recordings, the sonic scaping of the music consists of live rhythm section instrumentalists
improvising lines over complex harmonic progressions, while interacting with samples of people
talking and noises, such as police sirens. Similar to Black Radio, the trio of piano, drums, and
bass loop patterns; however, they change the “feel” or “groove” within songs and improvise the
ends of their phrases, functioning like a rhythm section in a straight-ahead jazz group.
Furthermore, the album features fully improvised songs, such as “Dreams and Desperate
Measures, Pt. 2” that act more like modern jazz pieces. Other jazz/hip hop projects released by
Carrington include More to Say…Real Life Story (Next Gen) (2009) and The Mosaic Project:
LOVE and SOUL (2015).
17
Mesfin Fekadu, “Terri Lyne Carrington Is the Definition of Black Girl Magic.,” AP NEWS, April 20, 2021.
13
Derrick Hodge (b. 1979) is a multi-instrumentalist (a prominent bassist on both upright
bass and electric bass), composer, arranger, sideman, producer, and band leader. He is a Blue
Note Recording Artist and has received two Grammy Awards. Hodge’s newest jazz/hip hop
project Color of Noize (2020) features a unique timbre of all acoustic instruments creating hip-
hop beats and samples. Hodge’s linear notes state, “Color of Noize reflects a melting pot of
influence and experience with jazz flow, hip-hop grove, soulful depth, spiritual heft, and creative
fire…It’s his first album to use a live band throughout with Jahari Stampley and Michael Aaberg
on keys, Mike Mitchell, and Justin Tyson on drums, DJ Jahi Sundance on turntables, and Hodge
supplying bass, keys, guitar, and voice.”
18
This album is unique because the hip-hop groove and
musical aesthetic is recognizable, but each instrument improvises lines breaking away from the
mold of repeating the same line to project a hip-hop beat. Furthermore, it features longer sections
of improvised solos than other jazz/hip hop projects. Additional jazz/hip hop projects released by
Hodge include Live Today (2013) and The Second (2016). As a prolific sideman and recording
artist, Hodge is featured on albums with hip-hop producers and rappers including Floetry, Q-Tip,
Jill Scott, Timberland, Kanye West, Nasir “Nas” Olu Dara Jones, Yasiin “Mos Def” Bey,
Common, Taalib “MusiqSoulchild” Johnson, Andre “Andre 3000” Lauren, and many more.
Jazz/hip hop artists’ use of live comping rhythm sections and embedded samples sets
them apart from their predecessors. Unlike the early predecessors of jazz/hip hop, that Blount
described as “tacked together,” the interaction (described and illustrated in Chapters 2 and 4)
18
Luxpiration, “Derrick Hodge Home Page,” Derrick Hodge, n.d.
14
between rhythm section instrumentalists, samples, and choruses of rappers allows the
amalgamation of jazz/hip hop projects.
Conclusion
Jazz/hip hop history began in the late 1960s beat poetry movement. Beat poets used rhythmic
speech to deliver their poetry over live rhythm sections comping. These two elements were then
used in early-1980s and 1990s jazz rap projects; however, jazz rap artists relied on pre-recorded
sampling of bass and drum tracks. Jazz rap projects brought the musical aesthetics of combing
jazz elements, such as improvisation, with hop-hop aesthetics, such as sampled sound effects,
creating a rhythmically complex soundscape. In the late-1980s, jazz artists began experimenting
with hip-hop musical aesthetics such as sampled sound effects and using rappers in the front line.
Jazz artists differed from their rap counterparts during this time by incorporating acoustic rhythm
sections looping hip-hop inspired lines in lieu of using drum machines or pre-recorded bass lines.
Furthermore, melodies were played by horn instrumentalists. In the early 2000s, jazz/hip hop
artists began to emerge. These musicians continued the aesthetics set by the predecessors but
expanded the harmonic and melodic language of their pieces, embed samples into their groove,
and use live rhythm sections who fill within their comping.
15
Chapter 2 Musical Codes and Aesthetics
Modeled after Phillip Tagg’s and John Fiske’s semiotic methodology and William C. Banfield’s
African American Cultural Theory and Heritage Model, this chapter separates genre synecdoches
and cultural codes heard and seen in jazz/hip hop. A genre synecdoche is defined by Tagg as
follows:
a set of musical structures imported into a musical “home” style that refers to another
musical style by citing one or more elements supposed to be typical of that “other” style
when heard in the context of the “home” style. By including part of the other style, the
imported sounds allude not only to that other style in its entirety but also to the complete
genre of which that other musical style is but a part.
19
A genre synecdoche includes specific instrumentation, chordal progressions, timbre, lyrical
content, musical structure, and other features that are shorthand for an entire style or genre, as
interpreted by the audience and referred to as “musical codes” delineated by the style or genre
studied (i.e., jazz code, rap code, etc.). On the other hand, cultural codes are defined as sets of
principles, representations, practices, and conventions understood to be embraced by an artistic
community; as Banfield puts it, “Cultural codes are cultural, ideological inscriptions of meanings
conceived, created and constructed, and then projected by performances which suggest that
certain ways of being, thinking, looking, and styling are normative, preferable, and validated.”
20
19
Philip Tagg, Music’s Meanings: A Modern Musicology for Non-Musos (New York: The Mass Media Music
Scholars’ Press, 2013), 524.
20
William C. Banfield, Cultural Codes Makings of a Black Music Philosophy: An Interpretive History From
Spirituals to Hip Hop (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 9.
16
Following the model established by Banfield, I separate musical and cultural codes derived from
four categories: jazz, rap, hip hop, and African music.
21
Jazz Elements
Jazz codes heard in jazz/hip hop are as follows: 1.) improvisation; 2.) melodies played or
embellished by a saxophone or trumpet; 3.) acoustic instrumentation in the rhythm section, such
as upright bass, drum set, or acoustic piano; and 4.) complex harmonic language.
Improvisation is considered a defining element of jazz and is featured during the solo
section in a jazz tune. The common musical structure of a jazz tune is melody (head),
improvisation (solo section), and restatement of the melody (head). In the bebop era, solo
sections grew in length and became the focus of pieces and performances. During this era,
multiple members of the ensemble improvised over multiple choruses (a chorus is a complete
cycle through a song’s form). The focus on improvisation continued beyond the bebop era and
into modern jazz styles heard today. However, solo sections in jazz/hip hop are not the focus of
the tune. Instead, projects feature one member of the ensemble improvising over one to two
choruses. An example of a condensed solo section is heard on Terri Lynne Carrington’s
arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday” (2015), where the solo section consists of one
saxophone soloing over one chorus, 32 bars.
21
This chapter will not go into detail on other Black music that inspired rap or jazz. These predecessors include
funk, disco, blues, and R&B. However, because jazz/hip hop is created to reflect jazz and rap, elements of these
predecessors are present in the music under consideration, but detailed observations of their influence is beyond the
scope of this study.
17
Jazz ensembles consist of a frontline of trumpet, saxophone, or trombone and a backline
of bass, drum set, piano, or guitar. A common genre synecdoche of jazz is the use of trumpet and
saxophone either to play the melody or to accompany a singer with improvised fills between
phrases.
22
Jazz/hip hop artists emulate jazz by using one of these frontline instruments in their
choruses or solo sections. An example of a saxophone playing the melody is heard on Kamasi
Washington’s “Street Fighter Mas” (2018). Additionally, Washington is heard on Dinner Party
(2020) providing improvised fills for singers and rappers. A specific example is heard on the
chorus of “Sleepless Nights,” (2020) where Washington plays fills between the singer’s melodic
line.
23
Similarly, another common genre synecdoche is the use of backline instruments, such
acoustic piano, guitar, and drum set. Upright bass is rarely heard on these albums (reasons
discussed below in rap elements), but Derrick Hodge’s songs “Little Tone Poem” and “You
Could Have Stayed” (2020) features the upright bass and other acoustic instruments within the
live rhythm section. “Little Tone Poem” features an upright bass, acoustic piano, and drum set
playing brushes on the snare drum, a common jazz code for jazz ballads. The introduction to
“You Could Have Stayed” features looped arco upright bass. Using these acoustic instruments
cues the listener of the jazz influence on these projects.
The final genre synecdoche for jazz that is borrowed by jazz/hip hop artists is the use of
complex harmonic progressions. An example of the harmonic language heard in jazz/hip hop is
22
Williams, “The Construction of,” 443.
23
Terrace Martin et al., Sleepless Nights (Feat. Phoelix), CD. LP, Album (Empire, Sounds of Crenshaw, 2020).
18
seen in Figure 2.1. In this progression, we see chord extensions, slash chords, and unpredictable
chord relationships.
Figure 2.1 Chord progression from “I Stand Alone”(2013) by Robert Glasper
24
A differing example of Glasper’s progressions containing complex harmonic language is the
expanded progression heard behind the A sections of his arrangement of “Afro Blue” (2012),
figure 2.2. Again, we see unrelated chords and chordal planing, a modern voicing technique
where chords are moved not in relation to voice leading, but in parallel motion, as seen in bar
two. These chord progressions differ from rap chord loops, which have typically only one to two
chords. For example, “The Next Episode” by Dr Dre (1999) and “The Message” by Grandmaster
Flash (1982) alternate between the major I chord and its relative minor, the vi, for the entire
song.
24
All musical examples in this document are the author’s original transcriptions.
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19
Figure 2.2 Chord progression from “Afro Blue” (2012) arranged by Robert Glasper
Jazz/hip hop artists set their projects apart from early experiments by jazz musicians and
rappers by using acoustic instruments to produce improvised lines. Furthermore, the integration
of advanced harmonic language and improvisation ties jazz/hip hop with its jazz predecessors.
Rap Elements
Rap codes heard in jazz/hip hop are as follows: 1.) layering; 2.) prioritizing drums and low
frequency bass lines; 3.) Vocoders; 4.) sampling; 5.) a rapped chorus; and 6.) repetition and
rupturing.
Layering an essential element in rap: “The way in which rap music is produced demands
specific attention to musical layers. DJs and producers lay down (create) tracks one line at a
time, thereby building texture not in vertical stacks, but in horizontal layers.”
25
Producers
navigate the form of a rap tune by varying the timbre of one-layer, cueing formal sections like
25
Felicia M. Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap: God Hop’s Music, Message, and Black Muslim Mission
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 76.
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20
the chorus, verse, rap, or an instrumental section. Felica Miyakawa’s groove continuum
transcription method demonstrates how rap compositions are divided into two large groupings—
melodic layers and percussive layers. Jazz/hip hop musicians who produce projects using the
verse/chorus form use this technique by changing one layer. For example, Washington’s “Street
Fighter Mas” (2018) adds a chorus singing a sampled line with trumpet doubling, as seen in
figure 2.3, to indicate musical structure moments. The sample is used as a transition from the
introduction to the melody, a sendoff to the solo section, an interlude between soloists, a
background behind the drum solo, and an outro.
Figure 2.3 Choir sample from Kamasi Washington’s "Street Fighter Mas" (2018)
An example of a sampled percussion loop used to transition between the rapped choruses, verses,
and sung choruses, is heard on Terrace Martin’s, “Pig Feet” (2020). The percussion loop changes
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21
from an eight-bar looped drum-set groove, figure 2.4, to a looped four-bar groove played by
bongos, figure 2.5.
Figure 2.4 Drum set loop from “Pig Feet” (2020) by Terrace Martin
Figure 2.5 Bongo loop from “Pig Feet” (2020) by Terrace Martin
Rap producers intentionally distort tracks within each layer. Low bass frequencies are
boosted, drum tracks are brought to the foreground of the sonic landscape, and vocal tracks are
manipulated using studio special effects, such as autotune. Rose explains the studio recording
techniques rap producers use:
Rap producers use particular digital sound machines because of the types of sounds they
produce, especially in the lower frequencies. Boosting the bass is not merely a question
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22
of loudness—it is a question of the quality of lower-register sounds at high volumes. …
Not only have rap producers selected the machines that allow for greater range of low-
frequency resonance, they have also forced sound engineers to revise their mixing
strategies to accommodate rap’s stylistic priorities. Gary Clugston, rap engineer at INS
recording in New York, explains how rap producers arrange sounds, first pushing the
drums to the foreground and at the center of the piece and then using effects to
manipulate the bass sounds.
26
To mimic the low frequencies produced in rap projects, jazz/hip hop bassists use electric basses
and limit their playing to the lowest range. Jazz/hip hop bassists use multi-string electric basses
to extend their range one octave lower; Thundercat plays on a six-string electric bass, and
Derrick Hodge uses a five-string electric bass. Furthermore, some bass parts are performed or
doubled on specialized keyboards that produce distorted low frequencies, such as the Moog
synthesizer. For example, on Washington’s “Street Fighter Mas,” (2018) the bass loop is played
on a Moog synthesizer to achieve the distorted sound; its range is E1 to A2, as seen in figure 2.6.
26
Rose, Black Noise, 75–76.
23
Figure 2.6 Bass line from “Street Fighter Mas” (2018) by Kamasi Washington
An example of a bass line performed on a five-string bass is heard on “Freeze Tag” (2020). The
line loops in the lowest register of the bass moving from Eb2 to Db3, as seen in figure 2.7. These
bass lines differ from those of jazz bassists, who use the entire range of the instrument and
improvise lines that change melodic content each bar.
Figure 2.7 Bass line from “Freeze Tag” (2020) by Terrace Martin
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24
In contrast to traditional jazz balance considerations, jazz/hip hop projects follow a
balance system similar to that found in rap recordings; producers place the drum tracks in the
center of the sonic landscape and sometimes make the tracks louder than the melody. This differs
from straight-ahead jazz ensembles, in which drummers sonically balance beneath the melody. A
jazz/hip hop example of drums being louder than the melody is heard on Martin’s “First
Responders” (2020). An example of the drums being in the sonic foreground but not
overpowering the melody is heard on Washington’s “Street Fighter Mas” (2018).
Furthermore, jazz/hip hop artists use vocoders or talkboxes—synthesizers that change the
timbre of a voice without the aid of a production studio—so that the sound of the human voice
sounds robotic or sampled. Jazz/hip hop artists use this device in the studio and at live
performances because it mimics the distorted vocals we hear from rappers, such as Dwayne “Lil
Wayne” Carter, or the auto-tuned singing heard by Faheen “T-Pain” Najm. An example of a
jazz/hip hop melody sung through a vocoder is Robert Glasper’s arrangement of “Smells Like
Teen Spirit.”
The use of samples as an accompaniment in jazz/hip hop is a compositional technique
derived from rap. Sampling (discussed in greater detail in the final chapter of this document) is
the process of borrowing and manipulating passages of music from previously recorded albums
using a sampler, “Samplers are computers that can digitally duplicate any existing sounds and
play them back in any key or pitch, in any order, sequence, and loop them endlessly.”
27
DJs
perform live with jazz/hip hop groups by programming specific samples to interject musically
27
Rose, Black Noise, 73.
25
with rhythm section performers. Miyakawa defines five types of samples that each serve a
different musical purpose: vocal, instrumental, sound effects, quoted text, and historical dialect.
28
Jazz/hip hop projects incorporate multiple types of these samples in their projects. For example,
sirens and gunshots are heard on Terrace Martin’s, “Pig Feet” (2020) to create the environment
of being on the streets of an inner-city neighborhood. While, spaceship and laser noises are heard
on Robert Glasper’s “Lift Off/Mic Check” (2013) to emulate being in space. Unique to jazz/hip
hop projects, samples continue beneath improvised solos and rhythmically interact with the
rhythm section and soloist (further discussed in the final chapter).
The music of rap is characterized by featuring a chorus of rapping. Jazz/hip hop projects
feature a chorus of rapping either as the melody or as a soloist in the solo section. This depends
on whether the artist is using early rap form or modern rap form in their project. Early rap form
consists of strung-together looped verses that repeat for each member of the crew to rap over. On
the other hand, “modern rap (that is, rap of the 1990s and beyond) relies heavily on verse/chorus
form,” which features a vocalist singing the choruses and a rapper rapping on the verses.
29
Examples of jazz/hip hop songs using early rap form include the following: Martin’s “Pig Feet”
(2020), Marcus Lewis Big Band’s “Fake It Till I Make It” (2018), Carrington’s “Purple
Mountains” (2019), and Glasper’s “This Changes Everything” (2019). Examples of jazz/hip hop
songs using modern rap form include: Thundercat’s “Fair Change” (2020), Carrington’s “Bells
(Ring Loudly),” (2019), August Greene’s “Black Kennedy” (2018) and Martin’s “Freeze Tag”
and “LUV U” (2020).
28
Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap, 102–22.
29
Ibid, 76.
26
A defining aesthetic feature of rap is the use of repetition and rupture in looped samples.
Repetition is created in rap through looping samples and the manipulating of these samples leads
to rupture. Rose distinguishes among three forms of rupture: the rhythmic rupture produced by
scratching; the rhythmic rupture that occurs when musical patterns interrupt each other; and the
rupture produced when MCs change their flow patterns over the musical tracks.
30
Miyakawa
builds on this idea and argues,
Rupture is a textual change, as manipulation of both melodic and percussive layers. Seen
in this way, rupture can emphasize formal design, outlining for example, the boundaries
between verses and choruses. Rupture can also highlight structural repetition, helping to
delineate four-and eight-bar phrasing. And finally, rupture in the form of textual changes
can be used for expressive purposes in order to stress specific moments of text.
31
Miyakawa defines rupture as timbre changes that can occur at both the rhythmic and melodic
levels including the following: rhythmic variation, change in instrumentation, shifting rhythmic
patterns, and addition or subtraction of voices. In jazz/hip hop, rupture is achieved by adding
additional melodic elements, such as instruments or vocals, rhythm section breaking the groove
or changing the feel, or samples being added. An example of rupturing of the groove is seen in
figure 2.11, bar 2. On beat four the bass and piano drop out, breaking the four-beat groove, but
allowing musical space for the vocal texture to be added. This rupture suspends time in the same
fashion as DJs rupturing time to create breaks for breakdancing.
30
Rose, Black Noise, 39.
31
Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap, 81–82.
27
Jazz/hip hop artists treat their projects like rap producers by concentrating on the sonic
layering of their projects. Differing from their jazz counterparts, they feature drum tracks in the
sonic foreground, place the bass in the lowest range, and manipulate vocals. Jazz/hip hop artists
use samples and choruses of rapping as additional melodic material that interjects within the
established groove. Similar to their rap counterparts, samples and tracks interact together through
repetition and are ruptured creating a break in flow.
Hip Hop Elements
Hip hop is a cultural movement that has its own language, values, and dress; “the language, style,
and attitudes associated with hip hop are coded and understood and performed as ‘Black.’”
32
Hip-hop codes used in jazz/hip hop are as follows: 1.) vernacular; 2.) dress; and 3.) the political
nature of lyrics.
Hip-hop culture contains its own vernacular or slang. Jazz/hip hop artists use this slang in
the lyrics of their projects. Examples include the following:
• Martin’s “Pig Feet” (2020), whose lyrics include the following key terms: “smoke every
ounce of me,” which is slang for “shoot me dead,” and “net ballin’,” which means being
extremely wealthy and “living the life”
• Snoop Dog’s rap on “Sleepless Nights” (2020); the use of “homie” for friend
32
Tricia Rose, The Hip Hop Wars What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop —and Why It Matters (New
York: Basic Civitas, 2008), 11.
28
• Glasper’s “This Changes Everything” (2019), whose lyrics include “gang-bang,”
(meaning being a member of a gang), “get yo money” (which follows the common hip-
hop theme of attaining wealth), and “homie”
The use of slang words associated with hip-hop culture in jazz/hip hop projects links jazz/hip
hop artists to the cultural movement of hip hop.
Another element of hip-hop culture is dress. There are two recognized regions of hip-hop
style, East Coast and West Coast. “East Coast style” refers to the early 1980s rap groups, such as
Run DMC, who wore athletic wear—often Adidas track suits. “West Coast” style rap emerged in
the late-1980s and dress is associated with Gangsta rap groups, such as N.W.A., with includes
“starter jackets, hoodies, L.A. Raiders caps, baggy pants, and occasionally gold chains.”
33
In hip
hop today, dress is influenced from a mixture of both East and West Coast modern fashion
including track suits, bucket hats, nameplates, bandanas, beanies, and fitted pants. Jazz/hip hop
artists borrow this imagery on their album covers. For example, Robert Glasper’s album Fuck Yo
Feelings (2019) uses West Coast style and compares nicely with Slim Thug’s album Boss Life
(2013) and Tupac Shakur’s Live at the House of Blues (2005), as shown in Figure 2.8.
33
Robin D.G. Kelley, “Kickin’ Reality, Kickin’ Ballistics: Gangsta Rap and Postindustrial Los Angeles,” in
Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture, edited by Critical Perspectives on the Past
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 133.
29
Figure 2.8 Album covers of Robert Glasper album Fuck Yo Feelings (2019), Slim Thug’s album Boss Life (2013) and Tupac
Shakur’s Live at the House of Blues (2005)
There are multiple elements matching between these three albums: the posing of the main artist,
the chains, the dress, and the hand signs. On the contrary, Marcus Lewis’s album art for Brass
and Boujee (2018) borrows East Coast style. Hip-hop dress on this cover includes track suits, a
bucket hat, and a bandana. Another hip-hop culture aesthetic seen is the use of graffiti to write
the band’s name.
Figure 2.9 Brass and Boujee (2018) Album Cover
30
Jazz/hip hop artists use imagery from hip-hop culture in their projects through dress and graffiti
writing (the visual art form of hip-hop culture). The hip-hop visual elements seen in jazz/hip hop
projects show that jazz musicians are borrowing from the culture of hip hop and not solely
borrowing the musical aesthetics of rap.
Hip hop lyricism, whether heard through spoken word, a rapped chorus, or singing, is
characterized by the political consciousness of the text. Banfield argues that lyrical content is a
core element of hip hop culture:
In addition to the classic four hip hop elements—rapping, DJing, dancing, and graffiti—
there is a fifth element: knowledge and consciousness. The ideas authors highlight in hip
hop are sexuality, violence, language, the politics of pondering the truths about inner-city
life, “dropping the needle,” understanding the contemporary human urban condition,
philosophical probes into the nature of God, mysteries of love, depths of self-
consciousness, subtleties of living an “authentic life,” the aesthetics of noise, and how to
respond to injustice. …
Hip-hop narratives are mostly urban stories of poetic reaction to the decimation of
the Black community. Themes include poverty, crime, jail culture, drug/gang culture,
police brutality, jobs and unemployment, sexism, urban identity after the civil rights era,
the Black male urban image, male/female relationships, and community uplift and
empowerment. The narratives provide a critique of America and seek to hold people
accountable.
34
34
Banfield, Cultural Codes, 44, 174.
31
Robin Kelley explains why police brutality and social oppression are themes in hip hop culture:
In the streets of Los Angeles, as well as in other cities across the country, hip hop’s
challenge to police brutality sometimes moves beyond the discursive arena. Because the
Vietnam-like conditions in their communities and the pervasive racism throughout the
whole city (and country) circumscribe the movement of young Blacks, their music and
expressive styles have literally become weapons in a battle over the right to occupy
public space.
35
Jazz/hip hop features the themes of police brutality, inner-city life, mass incarceration of
Black Americans, and sexism in the text of their projects. A few examples follow:
• Terrace Martin’s “Freeze Tag” (2020) is about police killing a child playing a “cops and
robbers” game at a neighborhood cookout. Lyrics include the following:
(Chorus) They told me put my hands up behind my head
I think they got the wrong one
I’m sick and tired of runnin’
I been searchin’ where the love went
I been lookin’ for a dove
They told me if I move, they gon’ shoot me dead.
36
• Martin’s “Pig Feet” (2020) is about police brutality, mass incarceration of Black men,
and the dilapidation of the community as a result of the government’s disregard for inner-
city neighborhoods. Lyrics include the following:
35
Kelley, “Kickin’ Reality,” 134.
36
All lyrics presented are transcribed with the aid of lyric generators (genius.com and lyric.com).
32
Helicopters over my balcony
If the police can’t harass, they wanna smoke every ounce of me
Breath is alchemy, see how the life converted
You tell me life’s a female dog, well I’m perverted
Go to jail or get murdered
Murder was the case they gave us
Manipulate the system so the prison could save us, ay
Nothin’ can save us
Foot Locker, liquor stores, undercovers bringin’ hordes
Ten years plus four, little kids die at war
Mama wants me baptized, swimmin’ in this blood shore
Shut down schools to open drugs and gun stores
• Terri Lyne Carrington’s “Bells (Ring Loudly)” discusses police killings of Black
Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement. Lyrics read as follows:
Loudly, languishing ladies sing,
Church bells ring, bullets blurring,
Deferring dreams like it ain’t no thing.
Another brother slain in vain in the name of justice,
Though really it feels more like just them.
It seems we’ve only been a friend to the system
That one time our juice contained a little shot of Johnny.
Beyond the stars and stripes and prison bars and stereotypes, blue lives splatter
red on canvas of brown skin as if Black Lives Matter is a game to them and not a
33
basic right within, all men are created equal.
Say her name hashtags validate what shiny badges boldly violate.
Siren swell morphing into church bells, signaling another unjustifiable death and
yet
(Chorus) Another mother left childless.
You took my love away from me
I want to know, how did it feel to watch her tremble and bleed?
Tell me, what gave you the right to kill, so senselessly?
When you’re alone, do you ever think of us? Or pray for our peace?
• Robert Glasper’s “Endangered Black Woman” (2019) discusses the sexist and second
class-citizen treatment of Black women. Lyrics include the following:
I don’t even have time to address the fetishized hatred we endure from white men
So you’ll forgive me if I don’t give a fuck about your cooperation of feelings
Fuck you for wanting me to hold you while you sink your racist, sexist knives into
my already bleeding back
Fuck you for needing me to absolve you of your many, many sins against me
Fuck you for putting everybody’s needs before my own: Black men, white men,
Black women, the fucking dog, the cat, my boss, the neighbor’s rabbit, the
fucking government, the endangered fucking turtles.
Why are everybody’s needs more urgent than my own,
When do we worry about me, my feelings, my needs, my rights, my body, my
safety, my fucking life
34
• Esperanza Spalding’s “Land of the Free” (2012) is about the thirty-one-year
imprisonment of Cornelius Dupree Jr., who was incarcerated for a crime for which he
was later found innocent; however it is also a stance on the overall mass incarceration of
Black men in the United Sates. The lyrics read,
Finally, they’ve exonerated Dupree
But it cost him his parents, and his wife, his home, his life
In the land of the free
Evidently five fifths an innocent man but the court only saw three
He spent eleven thousand days locked away
In the land of the free
How can we call our home, the land of the free
Until we’ve unbound the praying hands
Of each innocent woman and man
In these lands of the [sampled sound of a jail cell door closing]
Jazz/hip hop artists use these hip-hop themes to illustrate the aesthetic integrity of their music by
connecting their projects to the political movement of recognizing Black Americans’ basic
human rights, known as Black Live Matters (BLM).
Studying the hip-hop codes jazz/hip hop artists borrow allows us to see that jazz
musicians are not merely adding rappers and samples into their jazz projects but adopting
cultural aesthetics and values from hip hop.
35
African Elements
According to specialists in the area, African elements appear as a lineage of all Black music.
Amiri Baraka and Banfield argue that tracing Black musical elements to their African
predecessors shows how African musical elements evolved in America to become Black musical
elements. Baraka states, “Black music is African in origin, African-American in its totality, and
its various forms (especially the vocal) show just how the African impulses were redistributed in
its expression. …And the hard Black core of America is African.”
37
Banfield adds that not only
is Africa the root for Black musical elements, but also its ideology: “Africa is the root of all
Black music, not only in musical expression, but also in philosophy of music, i.e., community
involvement. …A full appreciation and understanding of Black music is possible only after first
looking at the African cultural and aesthetic root. All Black arts created within the diaspora are
cultural derivatives of traditional West African practice, philosophy, and worldviews.”
38
A few African codes heard in jazz/hip hop are as follows: 1.) call-and-response; 2.)
syncopation; 3.) rhythmically complex soundscapes; and 4.) guttural expressions.
African music is communally based and utilizes call-and-response to engage participation
from the audience. Call-and-response is made of two musical phrases: the call, which is provided
by a leader who acts as a soloist, and the response, which is provided by an ensemble or the
audience. Early call-and-response pieces used a form that consisted of a two-bar call that the
leader improvises upon and a two-bar answer that is restated by the chorus but is not changed.
This procedure continued from early slave forms to modern Black music today. Banfield states,
37
Amiri Baraka, "LeRoi Jones," The Music (New York: William Morrow and Company, 2010), 192–94.
38
Banfield, Cultural Codes, 92.
36
“The call-and-response form of Africa (lead and chorus) has never left us, as a mode of (musical)
expression. It has come down both as vocal and instrumental forms.”
39
Early examples of call-
and-response can be heard in recordings of field hollers, ring shouts, the early Black Gospel
church, and early blues.
An example of call-and-response heard in jazz/hip hop is on Robert Glasper’s
arrangement of “Afro Blue” (2012), shown in figure 2.10. In the first chorus, the vocalist sings a
two-bar line of text that acts as the call and a sampled flute answers with a two-bar melodic line.
Like the call-and-response style heard in African music, the vocalist acts as the caller by
changing the melodic shape and text, while the flute answers with the same eight pitches and
rhythms.
African music uses syncopation. Jazz/hip hop artists use syncopation in melodies and
accompaniment. An example of syncopation is seen in figure 2.10 in both the melody voice and
flute accompaniment. The voice enters on the offbeat of two and sings a syncopated line at bars
nine, ten, thirteen and fourteen. Furthermore, the flute responds with a syncopated line where
each note falls on the offbeat in bars three, four, seven, eight, eleven, and twelve.
39
Ibid, 181.
37
Figure 2.10 Call-and-response pattern from "Afro Blue" (2012) arranged by Robert Glasper
African music is characterized by a rhythmically complex soundscape. Tension is created
by adding rhythms that clash against the principal beat in polyrhythmic fashion. John Chernoff
explains the use of polyrhythms in African drumming and the disorienting effect polyrhythms
have on Western listeners:
Voice
Flute
Dream of a land My soul is from
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Fl.
I hear a hand Stroke on the drum
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38
In [African] music, the conflicting rhythmic patterns and accents are called “cross-
rhythms.” The diverse rhythms establish themselves in intricate and changing
relationships to each other analogously to the way that tones establish harmony in
Western music. The effect of polymetric music is as if the different rhythms were
competing for our attention. No sooner do we grasp one rhythm than we lose track of it
and hear another. … [The] Western concept of a main beat of pulse seems to disappear,
and a Westerner who cannot appreciate the rhythmic complications and who maintains
his habitual listening orientation quite simply gets lost.
40
Western listeners are often disoriented by rhythmically complex soundscapes influenced by
African music; because, in Western music, each voice holds a specific role, tension is created by
moments of polyrhythm that is resolved, and beats one and three are emphasized as the “main
beats of the pulse.” However, in African music, voices move disjunct from each other, rhythmic
tension can remain unresolved, and beats two and four are emphasized.
Figure 2.11 illustrates the complex rhythmic soundscape of the four-bar groove looped in
“First Responders” (2020). In bar one, the sampled glockenspiel begins grouping the off beats on
the and-of-one which clashes with the hi-hat’s accenting every eighth note. Bar two’s cross
rhythms are heard in the sampled voice, bass drum, and glockenspiel. Both the voice and bass
drum accent the downbeat of three; however, the glockenspiel accents the and-of-three. It is not
until the downbeat of bar three that all voices accent beat one together. Therefore, the groove
builds tension by accenting the off-beats and climaxes in bar three by having all voices arrive
40
John Miller Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility: Aesthetics and Social Action in African Musical
Idioms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 46–47.
39
together. This leads to disorientation because Western listeners associate main beats with one
and three; in contrast, jazz/hip hop artists primarily accent beats two and four, another African
rhythmic practice. Chernoff states, “Generally in African musical idioms most of the notes seem
to fall on what we would call the ‘off-beat.’”
41
This accenting is not only shown through the
avoidance of accenting beats one and three, but also the snare drum consistently playing quarter
notes on beats two and four (a practice referred to as playing a backbeat).
Figure 2.11 Four-bar groove looped in “First Responders” (2020) by Terrace Martin
41
Chernoff, African Rhythm, 48.
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40
The communal and expressive nature of African music is heard through guttural
expressions. Guttural expressions include moans, groans, and screams which are produced by
either performing musicians or a participating audience member. African music “features the
‘sound’ of the Black voice or uses the horn as an extension of the Black voice; it includes social
commentary and employs inexhaustible variations of repetition and metric layering, which
includes guttural expression as beautiful; it encourages active listener participation and reaction;
and the expressions incorporate physical movement as part of the performance practice.”
42
In jazz/hip hop, guttural expressions are heard in both instruments and vocal parts. For
example, in the intro of “Freeze Tag” (2020), as seen in figure 2.12, we see the voice and guitar
using guttural expressions. In bar one, the voice enters on a grunted “eh” that bends the pitch
down in what we might term “fall.” Then, in bar two and three, the guitar scoops or slides into
beat four. The slide into beat four in bar two is also referred to as a “blue note,” because the
guitarist is playing a semi-tone between the third of the chord F and the flatted third Fb. “This
‘singing between the pitches’ is a uniquely African embellishment to the European musical scale,
theoretically characterized by lowering or flatting the third, fifth, and seventh pitches of a major
scale even against the major chord sonority or sound.”
43
Guttural expressions not only contribute
to the expressive nature of African music but are intentional interjections into the rhythmically
complex soundscape.
42
Banfield, Cultural Codes, 95.
43
Ibid, 101.
41
Figure 2.12 Intro to “Freeze Tag” (2020) by Terrace Martin
Conclusion
Jazz/hip hop is an accumulation of musical aesthetics from rap and jazz music with cultural
influence from African and hip-hop cultures. Tagg’s and Fisk’s semiotic model shows that
listeners identify specific musical codes in the jazz/hip hop as either “rap” or “jazz.” Rap codes
include layering, drums in the sonic foreground, low frequency bass lines, manipulated samples,
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42
a rapped chorus, and the use of repeated lines that are then suspended or ruptured. The jazz codes
used in jazz/hip hop are improvised solos, melodies played or embellished by a saxophone or
trumpet, acoustic instrumentation in the rhythm section, and complex harmonic language.
Because jazz/hip hop artists blend these musical elements together instead of merely adding
elements from rap or jazz into the sonic layering, like their predecessors, jazz/hip hop is heard as
a true fusion.
Additionally, jazz/hip hop borrows visual, sonic, and philosophical cultural codes.
Banfield’s African American Cultural Theory and Heritage Model teaches us that cultural codes
are sets of principles, representations, practices, and conventions embraced by a community. Hip
hop is a unique cultural phenomenon that has its own vernacular, values, themes, and dress.
Jazz/hip hop utilizes the lyrical nature of either singers or rapped choruses to project themes of
police brutality, inner-city life, mass incarceration of Black Americans, and sexism. Furthermore,
artists use album art to display dress associated with hip hop culture and other elements that
characterize hip hop, such as graffiti.
Jazz/hip hop is a Black art form created by Black artists. To study Black music, Baraka,
Chernoff, Walser, Rose, Toop, Banfield, and Guthrie Ramsey state that we must trace the music
to its historical roots, in Africa. The African codes jazz/hip hop contains are call-and-response,
syncopation, rhythmically complex soundscapes, and guttural expressions. These codes are not
unique to jazz/hip hop but are found in majority of Black music genres, including rap and jazz as
separate art forms.
43
Chapter 3 Adding Hip-Hop Aesthetic
This chapter addresses why hip-hop aesthetics are added to jazz projects. From published
interviews, jazz/hip hop artists explain that the commercial success of their projects is because
their music reflects their childhood musical influences and that the two musical styles are related
to one another. Furthermore, jazz/hip hop artists view their consideration of their audiences’
musical tastes not as a commercial strategy used to garner a larger listener base, but as a
continuation of the jazz tradition of performing commercial music.
Why Hip Hop?
Jazz/hip hop musicians of the 2000s often sample hip hop because, as they themselves claim, the
music that they heard growing up influences their current projects. For example, jazz/hip hop
producer, rapper, and multi-instrumentalist Terrace Martin explains that his musical upbringing
included a diverse mixture of what his parents were listening to and what he was listing to.
Martin’s father, jazz drummer Ernest “Curly” Martin, was a jazz afficionado. Martin’s mother, a
singer and pianist, listened to early R&B artists. Martin himself listened to gangsta rap, he
clarified in 2016:
I’m a kid in-between, listening to gangsta rap, but I gotta cut that shit off when I get to
my momma’s house! From walking to school every morning, it was gangsta rap or Big
Daddy Kane. Then I get in the house and my head is torn between John Coltrane, Woody
44
Shaw, Sonny Stitt, Jackie McLean, Archie Shepp, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick
Corea, Bud Powell, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans.
44
In that same year, Martin shared with DownBeat Magazine,
I grew up in a musical household. We loved music. …I had friends who grew up in artsy-
driven kind of households. But my early memories of childhood were just Marvin Gaye,
Donny Hathaway, Luther Vandross records. … At the same time, gangsta rap was being
born on the West Coast. The other people I was listening to and enjoying was like
anything from NWA, Eazy-E, Too Short, DJ Quik.
45
However, Martin also clarified that his father was not the primary source of his interest in jazz.
Instead, Martin points to the connection that he himself made between jazz and hip hop after
hearing jazz samples used by the rap group A Tribe Called Quest:
I hear A Tribe Called Quest and I’m like, “Damn, this music feels like the music my
father used to play in the back of the house…that annoying shit every fuckin’ day called
jazz!” He would come to my school and pick me up and play John Coltrane loud as shit!
It was embarrassing cause everyone else’s father played Too Short or Dana Dane or some
New Edition cool shit! And here’s my dad playing Coltrane! A Tribe Called Quest struck
44
Shannon Effinger, “Q&A with Terrace Martin: From Hip-Hop to Herbie Hancock,” DownBeat, October 28, 2016,
https://downbeat.com/news/detail/qa-with-terrace-martin-from-hip-hop-to-herbie-hancock.
45
Ibid.
45
a chord because I’m digging it and finding something that makes me think. …[It]
reminded me of where I was from.
46
In these interviews, Martin shares that jazz was not his only musical influence, but also R&B,
Motown, and gangsta rap.
Like Martin, jazz/hip hop saxophonist Kamasi Washington was introduced to jazz by his
parents’ records and found gangsta rap and hip hop from his own musical exploration.
Washington’s father, Rickey Washington, was a jazz drummer who held frequent jam sessions in
the house. Washington describes how his father introduced him to jazz artists Lee Morgan,
Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancock through his record collections.
47
He also relayed his
relationship to jazz, hip hop, and the connection between the genres in an interview with Adam
Shatz:
“Kamasi was hearing ‘A Love Supreme’ before he even knew what he was listening to,”
his father told me. He started out on drums at three and began studying the clarinet at
nine. But Kamasi says he mostly listened to hip hop until he was eleven, when a friend of
his older brother gave him a mixtape of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers with the
trumpeter Lee Morgan. [That friend, Lamar Van Sciver, is now a hip-hop and R&B
producer.] “That’s when I finally got into jazz,” [Kamasi] said. “All of a sudden, I
became aware of all this music I had around me at home.”
46
Jessica McKinney, “‘Our Job Has Always Been to Reflect the Times:’ Why Terrace Martin Made His Fearless
New Song,” Complex, June 3, 2020, https://www.complex.com/music/2020/06/terrace-martin-interview-pig-feet.
47
Josef Woodard, “Kamasi Washington: ‘All the Doors Opened,’” DownBeat, July 2016, 25-29.
46
Each of these interviews illustrates that jazz artists gravitate to hip hop because as
adolescents they were influenced by the late-1980s and 1990s rappers and hip-hop producers.
Furthermore, their introduction to jazz is familial; and they heard hip-hop producers sampling
records from their parents’ own collections, they made musical/aesthetic connection between the
two styles. These experiences reflect a phenomenon common in communities of jazz musicians
and listeners, acknowledged by Aja Burrell Wood:
Experiences of jazz and its recordings are often rooted in familial and community
relationships and may transcend those of, say, simply stumbling upon an old jazz record.
In other words, a record is not just any record, its’s “your dad’s record,” and can come to
be associated with everything it means to him, to you, and to your relationship.
48
The aesthetic between jazz and hip hop is more than familial; it has a broad historical, cultural,
and racially charged interconnectedness, illustrated in the interviews mentioned above.
In addition to being influenced by music played in their childhood homes, jazz/hip hop
artists are also influenced by musical influences heard within their social environment. For
example, Washington describes his unique sonic landscape growing up in Leimert Park, a
historical and contemporary center of Black art, music, and culture in Los Angeles:
When most people think of South Central L.A., they think of gangsta rap. That was a part
of it. We heard that. That is in the music, as well, that aspect of life, for sure, but Leimert
Park was a big part of it, too. That energy was not just the jazz clubs, but the people who
lived there. There was a social consciousness and a great sense of community.
49
48
Burrell Wood, “We Got the Jazz.”
49
Woodard, “Kamasi Washington: ‘All the Doors Opened,’” 29.
47
Leimert Park continues today as a central location for many of the jazz artists collaborating with
rappers. Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat, Cameron Graves, Patrice Rushen, Miles Mosley, Ryan
Porter, Ronald Bruner, in addition to Washington, and Martin all played in an after-school jazz
band—The Multi-School Jazz Band—at Watts’ Locke High School under the direction of
Reggie Andrews. Leimert park, a development of Watts, is an area associated with gangsta rap
and stereotypical ideas about comin’ outta’ Compton.”
50
Martin explains while he grew up in an
area notorious for gangs during the crack era, musicians became his heroes; they inspired him to
refrain from criminal activity and to pursue music. He states, “I grew up in a different kind of
life, in South Central, where my father got into criminal activities. My heroes were like Dr. Dre,
or whoever had the most money on the block, or the nicest car driving down the street or the
biggest rep in the neighborhood.”
51
Furthermore, when explaining his influence for his song “Pig
Feet” (2020), he shares,
I instantly think about Dr. Dre and Public Enemy. That’s the frequency I grew up
off of. That penetrated my life. That particular power in the music was driven into
my life. That’s the music that saved me from gang banging. That’s the music that
turned me on to jazz, because of the samples. So, I went back to my foundation.
Whenever I get lost in my life, I always go back to the point of direction. That’s
where the music came from.
52
50
Josef Woodard, “Kamasi Washington: L.A. Luminary,” DownBeat, 2016, 42,
https://downbeat.com/archives/detail/kamasi-washington-l.a.-luminary.
51
Effinger, “Q&A with Terrace Martin.”
52
McKinney, “‘Our Job Has Always Been.’”
48
Playing music that represents their cultural environment—as Martin and Washington are
describing—is a characteristic of the Black American musical experience, according to the
scholars Amiri Baraka (who wrote under the pseudonym LeRoi James) and William C. Banfield.
Baraka asks, “What are the people, for the most part, singing about? Their lives. That’s what the
New Musicians are playing about, and the projection of forms for those lives.”
53
Banfield
similarly states, “I see music as a body of expressive ideas that is both produced for and
influenced by social and human needs. I see music as art that grows from cultural experiences,
experiences heard in notes and sounds, experiences that help us understand the life that we are
living.”
54
Musicians also view their music as an aural history of their lives and as a connection
between the jazz generation and hip-hop generation. Rene McClean, Sr. states, “I don’t make
distinctions between jazz and hip hop because one’s existence is dependent on the other. It is just
another manifestation of creative expression as a link to the reality of Black folks and Black
youth in particular.”
55
Jazz/hip hop artists’ projects are a historical continuation of Black artists
musically describing the Black American experience by including the music that reflects their
social environments.
Like McClean, jazz/hip hop musicians view jazz and hip hop as related musical styles.
This relationship allows for their fusion. Washington shares his view of the connectedness
between jazz and hip hop:
53
Baraka, The Music, 189.
54
Banfield, Cultural Codes, 6.
55
Blount, “Jazz Meets Hip-Hop.”
49
“I started to hear music in a different way, and it changed the way I played jazz. Just
playing the notes didn’t do it for me anymore.” He came to see hip hop as a relative of
jazz. “All forms are complex once you get to a really high level, and jazz and hip hop are
so connected,” he said. “In hip hop you sample, while in jazz you take Broadway tunes
and turn them into something different. They’re both forms that repurpose other forms of
music.
56
Washington argues that hip hop and jazz are related because they share an aesthetic of borrowing
and transforming songs from different styles of music. This connection, he claims, allows for the
fusion of the two genres.
Jazz/hip hop trumpeter Marquis Hill also believes that jazz and hip hop are coupled. In an
interview discussing the inspiration behind his blending of jazz and hip hop on his 2014 album
Modern Flows vol. 1, Hill states,
I wanted to purposely play on that genre-line between jazz and hip hop. I said, ‘OK, I was
born in ‘87, I love hip hop. I’m a jazz-baby as well; I was exposed to this music at a very
young age. To me, it’s the same music—it’s coming from the same tree—and they’re
extensions of one another.
57
In an interview with Ken Micallef, Hill further reflected,
This is my attempt to really merge hip-hop and jazz. I wanted to show listeners that in
this new day and age, these two genres are damn near the same. Modern Flows: “flow”
56
Adam Shatz, “Kamasi Washington’s Giant Step,” The New York Times, January 21, 2016,
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/magazine/kamasi-washingtons-giant-step.html.
57
Phillip Lutz, “Trumpeter Marquis Hill Has a Message,” DownBeat Magazine, February 8, 2019, 20.
50
refers to a rapper’s rhythm or the pulse they’re articulating over a hip-hop beat. When
you listen to a jazz musician—the rhythms and articulations and nuances that a
saxophonist like Charlie Parker plays—then you listen to someone like Eminem, some of
the rhythms they use are very similar. I wanted to toy with that concept of “modern
flows.”
Washington and Hill both see jazz as a predecessor of hip hop, and this connection between the
musical styles allows for jazz and hip hop to fuse together on their projects.
Robert Glasper also views jazz and hip hop as relatives. In a video interview on Jazz
Night in America, Glasper explains:
Jazz is the mother or father of hip hop music. They’re both musics that were born out of
oppression. They’re both kind of like protest music. You know, going against the grain.
Naturally, if you’re a hip-hop producer who wants a lot of melodic stuff happening,
you’re probably going to go to jazz first.
58
To illustrate the connection of the two musics Glasper plays on the video three samples hip hop
producers borrowed from jazz artists:
• Producer Pete Rock sampling two bars of Ahmad Jamal’s piano progression from “I
Love Music” from the 1970 Ahmad Jamal Trio album The Awakening onto rapper
NAS’s song “The World is Yours” (from the 1994 album Illmatic)
58
Jazz Night in America, "Robert Glasper: Jazz Is the Mother of Hip-Hop” Jazz Night in America, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Caxwob1iKX4.
51
• Producer J. Dilla sampling six bars of Herbie Hancock’s playing from “Come Running
to Me” from his album 1978 Sunlight onto hip hop group Slum Village’s song, “Get Dis
Money” (from the 2009 album Fantastic, vol.2)
• Producer J. Dilla sampling Ahmad Jamal’s piano intro on “Swahilland” from the 1974
album Jamal Plays Jamal on Hip hop group De La Soul’s song, “Stakes is High” (from
the 1996 album Stakes is High)
Glasper was influenced by hip-hop producers when creating his jazz/hip hop projects: “That’s
the thing I learned from Dilla. He made people want to actually play like his beats. And that’s the
thing, you know, that’s the beauty of music, you can learn so many different things from
everywhere. It’s full circle.”
59
Glasper illustrates the connection between jazz and hip hop
through the sampling of jazz progressions on hip hop projects and how the reconstructing of
these samples to create beats inspired him in his projects.
Jazz/hip hop artists add hip-hop aesthetics to their jazz projects because of the connection
the styles share. They view hip hop as an extension of jazz created through shared cultural and
musical aesthetics. The fusing of these two styles is based on the interrelatedness between jazz
and hip hop, in addition to jazz/hip hop artists’ own influences.
But Is It Selling Out?
Jazz/hip hop artists’ motivation to include hip hop are questioned by critics who assume that the
use of hip-hop aesthetics in jazz projects is for mainstream recognition. Criticism stems from the
59
Jazz Night in America, “Robert Glasper.”
52
idea that “jazz is at the mercy of a market that exerts its own disciplines, which can result in the
music being shaped by commercial imperatives rather than aesthetic logic.”
60
This critique is
founded on the idea that commercial music robs the artist of their artistic integrity and corrupts
jazz’s aesthetic value.
Banfield describes the rise of the commercial culture and its effect on the music industry
as follows:
Commercial culture actually disrupts and corrupts artistic value codes. Market gain,
superficial posing, and mass production run counter to interpersonal skills, sensitivity,
individuality, deep expression, and originality. Today, the contemporary macrocultural
dislodging of key codes about music is troubling. Younger musicians must consider a
range of pressing questions about how their music is defined by the pervasiveness of
market forces, image representation, oversaturation of sexuality in lyrics, improper
downloading of artists’ work, advertising lockdown on the media machine, the influence
and legitimacy of media network boosts like American Idol, branding, and the seductive
lure of this culture’s materialistic gadgetism. All of these forces in our culture impact the
creative world of an artist. …
As fast as artists created, there were markets demanding the next thing. American
music follows the trends of society, but music pacifies society as well. There became,
with the post-WWII capitalistic surge, the need for “cultural diversions.” During this
60
Stuart Nicholson, Is Jazz Dead? Or Has It Moved to a New Address (New York: Routledge, 2005), x.
53
time, popular culture became firmly cemented as part of the American entertainment
industry. Music-making simply became part of the social matrix.
61
Banfield argues that when musicians choose to prioritize commercial elements, their output loses
an aspect of its originality. He further discusses the affect that this market force has on Black
music, a veritable appropriation by white culture of Black art.
Banfield’s view that commercialism causes artists to change the content of their music
instead of staying true to the artist’s values and vision, is what musicians refer to as, “selling
out.” Jazz/hip hop artists are asked if their music is succeeding because of their inclusion of hip
hop on their projects and if this commercial success is their motivator. When addressing this
question, Glasper says he is not selling out, but views himself as advancing the tradition set forth
by his predecessors of being innovative:
Everybody’s running around here asking where the audiences are, but they’re not playing
anything relevant to the society of now. They’re playing stuff relevant to a society of
1960 or 1940. “Stella By Starlight” does nothing for this crowd. “My Favorite Things”
was a song from a musical that was popular at the time when John Coltrane did it. I’m
doing nothing different than that by doing Radiohead or Coldplay, Björk, Kurt Cobain,
Michael Jackson. …
I want to be on everybody’s iPod. The average person’s iPod probably won’t have
any jazz on it, or maybe it has Kind Of Blue or a John Coltrane record that someone told
them to get. I’m trying to change that around. My campaign is not to convince everybody
61
Banfield, Cultural Codes, 7.
54
to love Wynton Kelly. There’s a generational gap; just like old people don’t like hip-hop,
young people probably aren’t going to like jazz. I’m not mad at that. I just want them to
like whatever I’m bringing to the table whether it’s jazz or not.
62
Glasper admits that this crossover profile creates a larger audience base, but his consideration of
the audience is not “selling out” but a continuation of the jazz tradition of arranging commercial
tunes and applying jazz aesthetics, such as improvisation and swing feel. He considers his
listening base by performing music that reaches multiple generations of listeners. Glasper’s
arrangements of popular music, such as “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (2022), “Lovely
Day” (2013), and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (2012), is not motivated by selling to a larger
audience, but instead follows in the footsteps of jazz giants like John Coltrane, Wes
Montgomery, Louis Armstrong, and more.
Glasper sees reaching out to the younger audience and introducing them to jazz as a
continuation of his predecessors’ work. Regarding the success of his 2012 album Black Radio,
Glasper says,
For a seventeen-year-old kid to hear that music, who listens to hip hop, for [one of my
songs] to come on now, it’s like, “Hey, what’s that?” What Black Radio has done—it
helps the music. Herbie would not be as popular in pop culture if it wasn’t for “Rockit.”
Kids who come up now know who Herbie is. They may not have checked out all his
music, but they know who Herbie is. And that says something. That says, “Hey, man,
he’s not afraid of being of now. Even at his age, he’s not afraid of being of now.” That
62
Shaun Brady, “Robert Glasper’s Big Experiment,” DownBeat, April 2012, 31.
55
was what was going on then [during the ‘80s], with break-dancing. So, he said, “I’ll do
this. This is cool. Yes, I can play a blues, too.”
63
Steve Coleman also discusses gaining audience members through their unfamiliarity with jazz,
“We go out and meet people and sign autographs and see what people are about. A lot of these
people haven’t even heard of George Duke or Herbie Hancock, whereas we grew up on that. It’s
like, ‘What is this?’ That is a big part of the appeal.”
64
Jazz/hip hop artists see their music as
successful because of their combination of “old” and “new,” but they attribute the success to
deeper meaning than crossing over as an artist, but organically playing the music of their
influences.
As discussed above, jazz/hip hop artists state their music still maintains integrity because
they organically combine the musics. And they argue that their music has aesthetic value because
they are not forcing two styles together just to gain a hip-hop audience. Glasper attributes the
commercial success of his 2012 album Black Radio (which debuted at No. 15 on the Billboard
200, No. 4 on the hip hop/R&B charts, and No. 4 in digital sales) to the natural addition of hip
hop: “It’s organic. When you hear us play hip hop, it’s hip hop. All the hip-hop heads will say,
‘Them are the roots.’ And any jazz band, when we sit down, we’re not gonna be like, ‘Here’s the
hip hop guys.’ No, we’re playing everything organically.”
65
Furthermore, Glasper states, “It’s
more than just borrowing elements from other genres, Black Radio fully embraces them,
resulting in an album that might sit more comfortably in an R&B record collection than in a jazz
63
Ephland, “Robert Glasper,” 42.
64
Shatz, “Kamasi Washington’s Giant Step.”
65
Ephland, “Robert Glasper,” 42.
56
one.”
66
According to Washington, the success of his albums is not because he includes hip hop,
but because the audience recognizes he is performing both styles genuinely.
Similarly, Washington attributes the success of his 2015 album The Epic to the
audiences’ recognition of the shared groove between jazz and hip hop, “They [the audience]
sense it, and feel it. When they connect, it all comes together. Then, they start getting these other
things: the chords, improvisation, and other stuff in there.”
67
Jazz/hip hop artists’ attribute their
commercial success to their ability to perform their hybrid style in a manner which the audience
hears the aural connection between jazz and hip hop.
Conclusion
Jazz/hip hop artists produce music that reflects the environments in which they grew up in. Their
fusion of hip hop and jazz stems from familial and aesthetic ties. Jazz/hip hop artists see their
music as a cultural expression of their histories/neighborhoods/childhoods or as an amalgamation
of the sonic world around them. Performing music that is a cultural expression of their lives is a
historical continuation of Black artists musically describing the Black American experience.
Jazz/hip hop artists view jazz as a predecessor of hip hop. The two styles share musical
aesthetics, which allows for the two styles to fuse together. Hip hop and jazz are fused on
jazz/hip hop projects in the same fashion that hip-hop producers sampled jazz on rap, through the
shared groove heard in the rhythm section. Recognizing that jazz is the root of hip hop and
66
Brady, “Robert Glasper’s Big Experiment,” 28.
67
Woodard, “Kamasi Washington: L.A. Luminary,” 42.
57
combining the styles through shared musical aesthetics preserves the aesthetic value of both jazz
and hip hop.
The commercial success of jazz/hip hop is because jazz/hip hop musicians consider their
audiences. Playing arrangements of commercially popular songs is not seen as a form of “selling
out” among these artists, but as a continuation of the jazz tradition. Jazz/hip hop artists are
commercially successful because they play music that appeals to multiple generations. Their
choice to include commercial musical elements in their music is not based on the commercial
market forces but as an extension of their adolescent musical environments and the musical
connection between jazz and hip hop.
58
Chapter 4 The Expanded Rhythm Section
This chapter examines the interactions between live performing drummers and bassists with
manipulated samples through excerpts transcribed using Western musical notation. Although
transcription can be problematic by not representing timbre or rhetorical nuances, it can be a
useful tool in revealing musical interactions both rhythmically and harmonically. As Robert
Walser states, “If notation conceals, it also reveals.”
68
Each excerpt below was chosen because either the artists state on their CD jacket, “There
are no programmed [rhythm section] loops on this album. Everything you hear was played live,”
or the recordings are from a live performance.
69
This criterion of live performance ensures that
samples were not added after production to mimic interaction with rhythm section performers.
My research aims to demonstrate the importance of pre-recorded samples in jazz/hip hop, not
only as a defining characteristic of hip hop culture and rap, but also as a fundamental element
that changes the rhythm section’s approach to improvising lines.
The Use and Meaning of Samples
Tricia Rose, Robert Walser, and Felicia M. Miyakawa attribute the aesthetic marker of hip hop to
the use of samples. Sampling is the process of borrowing and manipulating passages of music
from published recordings using a sampler. DJs perform live with jazz/hip hop groups by
68
Robert Walser, “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric in the Music of Public Enemy,” Ethnomusicology 39, no. 2
(1995): 199, https://doi.org/10.2307/924425.
69
Robert Glasper Experiment, Black Radio 2, https://www.discogs.com/master/612118-Robert-Glasper-Experiment-
Black-Radio-2.
59
programming specific samples to interject musically with rhythm section performers. Samples
are important to study for three reasons: first, samples act as the defining element of hip hop that
separates it from previous Black musics; second, samples define the groove, form, and
atmosphere of a piece; and third samples interact musically with the melody like a rhythm
section member.
The use of samples as the accompaniment of the melody in jazz/hip hop is an influence
from rap. According to Rose, “In rap, sampling remains a tactical priority. More precisely,
samplers are the quintessential rap production tool.”
70
In rap, samples exist as either a single
track, such as a two-bar bass line looped, or as multiple tracks layered on top of each other
creating the highly polyrhythmic environment that rap thrives in. Samplers defined the aesthetic
quality of rap that jazz/hip hop artists emulate. These qualities include repetition, breaks or
ruptures of groove, increased volume or distortion of low-frequency sounds (perceived as
“chaotic noise” to some listeners), and the placement of drums or percussion tracks in the sonic
foreground.
71
Jazz/hip hop instrumental and vocal melodic samples are unique because they are not
borrowed from published recordings. Instead, artists create melodic material that is manipulated
using the same compositional techniques that rap producers employ, including chopping, lifting,
splicing, and looping. The first technique is chopping, which is segmenting a phrase into
multiple pieces and either adding material to the segment or taking elements out of the track.
Lifting is taking phrases out of a track and placing them into other areas in the song without
70
Rose, Black Noise, 73.
71
Rose, 63; Robert Walser, “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric,” 197.
60
altering the phrase. Splicing is cutting a sample, either eliminating words or musical phrases, and
combining the remaining two segments creating a new phrase. Finally, looping which is taking a
sampled phrase and repeating it multiple times.
Rose and Walser examined the rhythmic importance of sampling and “noisy” timbre
samples created in rap.
72
Miyakawa expanded on this research to include the melodic importance
of samples heard in Black Muslim rap, commonly referred to as the Five Percenter Nation.
Miyakawa argues that samples serve formal conventions within a song, create sonic atmosphere,
and act as a historical bridge both musically and culturally for the informed listener.
73
Samples in
jazz/hip hop serve these same purposes. I add to their prior assessments by arguing that samples
interact musically like a jazz rhythm section member.
First, samples in jazz/hip hop serve formal conventions within a song, create sonic
atmosphere, and act as a historical bridge both musically and culturally for the informed listener.
Samples serving formal and atmospheric purposes in jazz/hip hop are discussed in Chapter 2 and
illustrated in figures 2.3 and 2.4. Additionally, in jazz/hip hop, samples act as a historical bridge
through sampled dialogue. Miyakawa refers to this sample type as “historical dialect” which is
“sampling voices from rap’s past, which adds a depth of historical reference that new lyrics alone
could not provide. Sampling rap history not only produces aesthetically pleasing results, but also
reinforces ties between rap’s past and present.” In jazz/hip hop, artists connect their projects with
historical jazz giants and cultural icons through their dialogue sampling. Robert Glasper’s
arrangement of John Coltrane’s, “A Love Supreme,” for instance, samples Coltrane saying, “I
72
Rose, Black Noise, 63; Robert Walser, “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric,” 197.
73
Miyakawa, Five Percenter Rap, 111–14.
61
have only one purpose: love.” By sampling Coltrane’s words, Glasper connects his arrangement
to the elder musician and ties together the two pieces. Furthermore, the sample serves a formal
purpose by marking structural moments including the introduction, chorus, solo section, and
outro.
Social Science’s live performance of “Bells (Ring Loudly)” (2019) also uses sampling to
create cultural connections with the past. This performance samples a portion of James
Baldwin’s speech given at the 1965 debate between Baldwin and William F. Buckley on the
subject “Has the American Dream been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?” The
quoted text includes the following:
What is relevant about this is that whereas forty years ago when I was born, the question
of having to deal with what is unspoken by the subjugated, what is never said to the master, of
ever having to deal with this reality was a very remote possibility. It was in no one’s mind. When
I was growing up, I was taught in American history books, that Africa had no history, and neither
did I. That I was a savage about whom the less said, the better, who had been saved by Europe
and brought to America. And, of course, I believed it. I didn’t have much choice. Those were the
only books there were. Everyone else seemed to agree. If you walk out of Harlem, ride out of
Harlem, downtown, the world agrees what you see is much bigger, cleaner, whiter, richer, safer
than where you are. They collect the garbage. People obviously can pay their life insurance.
Their children look happy, safe. You’re not. And you go back home.
74
74
Berklee College of Music, Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science Bells (Ring Loudly) Live at Berklee, 2019,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7SjPAylig.
62
This sampled text serves two purposes; first, the sample ties together the idea of the
“American dream” Terri Lyne Carrington (the leader of Social Science) presents with the one
Buckley presents; and secondly, the sample serves a structural purpose. Carrington’s lyrics speak
about police brutality causing unjustified killings of Black Americans (discussed in greater detail
in Chapter 2) and her American dream. The lyrics are, “But when I sleep/ I dream of a world/
Fearless and hopeful/Where my life matters.” Carrington’s American dream depends upon
America recognizing Black Americans, which relates to Baldwin’s argument that recognizing
Black Americans and their contribution to America is the only way an “American dream” exists.
Baldwin states, “I am one of the people who built the country—until this moment there is
scarcely any hope for the American dream, because the people who are denied participation in it,
by their very presence, will wreck it.”
75
Carrington makes this direct connection by ending the
piece with this quote and rupturing the groove to allow the quote to be heard without any music
underneath, thereby highlighting the importance of Baldwin’s statement.
Furthermore, this sample serves formal purposes. Artist and DJ Debo Ray splices
Baldwin’s phrases “What is unspoken” and “What a terrible thing” together to act as a melodic
motif. This motif is used to mark the formal structure of the beginning and end of the
introduction, start of the chorus, and beginning of the outro.
Second, in jazz/hip hop, samples participate as a rhythm section member through musical
interaction. “Interaction is colloquially called ‘comping’ and means to complement or
75
Tony Wilson, “James Baldwin: ‘I Picked the Cotton and I Carried It to Market and I Built the Railroads Under
Someone Else’s Whip’, Debate v William F. Buckley–1965,” Speakola, n.d, https://speakola.com/ideas/james-
baldwin-v-william-f-buckley-1965.
63
accompany.”
76
Musical interaction is heard accompanying both the melody and solo sections of a
jazz piece and is seen as a fundamental role of the rhythm section. As Willie Hill states, “The
number one priority for a good rhythm section always is to complement.”
77
Samples musically
interact with rhythm section members is unique to jazz/hip hop. The four common types of jazz
interactions that samples participate in are call-and-response, texture change, phrase punctuation,
and instigation.
The first type of interaction samples participate in is call-and-response. Call-and-response
is not limited to solo sections but also occurs behind the head or melody of a tune. A jazz/hip hop
example of call-and-response between a live performer playing the melody and a manipulated
sample answering is shown in figure 4.1 and discussed in Chapter 2. On Glasper’s arrangement
of “Afro Blue” (2012) the call is stated by the singer and the response is stated by the sampled
flute. The sampled flute response consists of a two-bar phrase, which is lifted from the four-bar
phrase the flute plays in the introduction of the piece, illustrated in figure 4.2. The two bars act as
a response by repeating the same succession of notes at the end of each four-bar phrase of the
chorus.
76
Jeffrey Benatar, “A Method for Teaching Interaction in Small Jazz Ensembles,” Jazz Education in Research and
Practice 2, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 170.
77
J. Richard Dunscomb and Willie Hill, Jazz Pedagogy: The Jazz Educator’s Handbook and Resource Guide (Van
Nuys: Alfred Music Publishing, 2002), 185.
64
Figure 4.1 Call-and-response between melody and sampled flute from “Afro Blue” (2012) by Robert Glasper
Figure 4.2 Flute line from the introduction of “Afro Blue” (2012) by Robert Glasper
Voice
Flute
Dream of a land My soul is from
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I hear a hand Stroke on the drum
5
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9
Voice
Fl.
Rich as the night Af ro
-
blue
13
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65
A jazz/hip hop example of a manipulated sample interacting with a live performing
soloist is heard on Glasper’s piano solo in “Lift Off/Mic Check” (2012). Figure 4.2 shows the
first eight bars of the piano solo (melody line only). The call consists of four bars heard in the
right hand of the piano and is answered by a four-bar response from the sampled voice. The
sampled voice repeats the rhythmic and melodic motif heard in bar two and bar four of Glasper’s
solo. The sample then ends with an octave Bb in bar eight, imitating the pianist’s octave jumps
starting in bar six. The sampled voice is behaving like a member of the rhythm section by
creating a dialogue with the soloist. The term “dialogue” describes the interaction between
soloists and backline instrumentalists, specifically backline instrumentalists taking phrases from
the soloist and repeating them back. Jeffery Benatar states, “The rhythm section together with the
soloists seek to create a dialogue or conversation in order to communicate effectively through the
music.”
78
This “dialogue” is a vital role of the rhythm section and jazz aesthetic. In “Lift Off/Mic
Check,” the sampled voice is acting like a backline instrument by repeating phrases back to the
soloist, thus fulfilling the rhythm section’s role of creating musical dialogue.
78
Benatar, “A Method for Teaching,” 170.
66
Figure 4.3 Call-and-response between Robert Glasper soloing and sampled voice from “Lift Off/Mic Check” (2012) by Robert
Glasper
The second type of interaction is the comping instruments’ technique of texture change,
the process by which “comping instruments alter the way that they are playing to adjust to the
soloist’s new musical ideas.”
79
An example of texture change is also created by the flute sample
heard in “Afro Blue” (2012). At 2:03 in the recording, the rapper enters into the front-line and
raps a sixteen-bar chorus, like a soloist in a jazz tune. Here, the full four-bar flute sample, shown
in figure 4.1, is looped. The rhythm section performers also alter their playing, matching the
looped sample. In the first eight-bars the bass increases in volume and the piano drops out
leaving only sampled flute, bass, and drums. Therefore, the flute sample acts as the harmonic
instrument within the rhythm section by outlining the harmony of a Bb7 chord. This change in
79
Benatar, “A Method for Teaching,” 169.
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67
rhythm section comping creates a texture change matching the transition in melodic material
from vocalist to rapper.
Another example of jazz/hip hop using texture change with manipulated samples is heard
in “Pig Feet” (2020). On this song, manipulated sounds of the environment are used both to
sonically create the storyline of the police shooting an unarmed Black man and accompany the
rapper and saxophone soloist within the rhythm section. For example, at 0:02 the sampled sound
of helicopter blades is used underneath the dialogue mimicking the sounds of an active crime
scene. The helicopter sample is accompanied with sounds of sirens, a police scanner, and a
female narrator. The sampled helicopter blades re-enter at 0:27 and are manipulated to be beating
in eighth notes matching the eighth-note groove heard in the rhythm section. Adding the
helicopter blades to the groove also supports the lyrics in the melody, “Helicopters over my
balcony.” Another example is the re-entry of the sampled siren at 1:08. Here, the sampled siren
works as part of the drum groove and enters as other rhythm section members exit including the
piano, guitar, bass, and synthesized brass while the saxophone enters. As illustrated in figure 4.4,
the drum groove changes to accent beats one and three with a break on beat four. The sampled
siren supports the accenting pattern by playing on beat three. This change in groove within the
rhythm section supports the melody as the rapper begins accenting one and three by saying a
two-syllable word or two short words on the downbeats of one and three as opposed to the rapid
delivery of rap heard prior to this section.
68
Figure 4.4 Drum and samples groove heard on "Pig Feet" (2020) by Terrace Martin
The third type of interaction is phrase punctuation, “playing in the space left by the
soloist with the purpose of propelling the ensemble into the next phrase or chorus.”
80
Playing in
the musical space within melodies and solo sections “adds to both the lilt of swing feel while
adding excitement and forward motion.”
81
Phrase punctuation is usually performed by a
drummer creating “chatter,” an undercurrent of rhythmic activity disjunct to the atmospheric
groove, played on the snare drum or toms. Punctuation also occurs when a bassist adds eighth
notes or triplets to their lines or a pianist plays a “chord stab,” staccato quarter-note or eighth-
note chords disjunct from the groove, in their comping. Phrase punctuation performed by
samples can be heard on nearly every recording. Below are a few specific examples illustrating
samples interjecting musically within the rhythm section.
80
Benatar, “A Method for Teaching,” 169.
81
Ibid, 171.
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69
Figure 4.5 shows the texture heard in Glasper’s “Black Radio” (2012) at 3:16, which acts
as the transition to the solo section. The sampled voices interject in a double-time feel countering
the half-time feel heard from the piano, bass, and drums. The small interjections keep the
transition section moving forward even though time feel has slowed.
Figure 4.5 Phrase punctuation from "Black Radio" (2012) by Robert Glasper
A second example of phrase punctuation is from “Bells (Ring Loudly)” (2019). Figure
4.6 shows the sampled taped voice sounding during pauses in the rhythm section. Each phrase is
disjunct from the groove, which uses eighth-note subdivisions and accents beats one and three.
Instead, the sample has a double-time feel and accents beats at random with no distinct pattern.
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70
Once again, the sample is interjecting musically not only creating forward motion and energy to
the half-time feel, but also creating a dialogue with the melody.
Figure 4.6 Phrase punctuation from “Bells (Ring Loudly)" (2019) by Terri Lyne Carrington
The last example of phrase punctuation is shown in Figure 2.12. The sampled voice’s
lyrics of “woo” and “higher” occur during pauses in the rhythm section, with no distinct
rhythmic pattern. These bursts increase the rhythmic activity of the music, build rhythmic
tension, and perpetuate the forward momentum of the music.
Finally, samples participate in instigation, which is “when a comping musician switches
something in his/her playing that provokes a soloist into charting a new course of
improvisation.”
82
This type of interaction is more common to hear in live performances, when
82
Benatar, “A Method for Teaching,” 169.
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71
DJs or drummers control samples from a drum machine (a device that stores sampled sounds and
is controlled rhythmically by tapping a pad), because solo sections are expanded in live
performances, and soloists often over-dub their solos in recordings, leading to less interaction
between all rhythm section members. However, an example of initiation is heard on “Lift
Off/Mic Check” (2012) at 2:33 and 2:49.
At 2:33, the sampled voice is manipulated to sound robotic and ascend in pitch for one
bar. Glasper imitates this ascension in his solo in the next bar (2:40) by taking a two-note motif
of a third and repeating it up a whole step consecutively four times. This is instigation because
Glasper changes his melodic lines in his solo to match the sample’s melodic ascension, in a
similar manner to the ways that a soloist reacts musically to live performing rhythm section
members.
Figure 4.7 illustrates instigation led by the sampled voice at 2:49. This is the end of the
piano solo and the instigation is both rhythmic and melodic because the bass and piano play back
the melodic line stated by the sample; this instigation can be seen in measures 2 and 3 of figure
4.6. Furthermore, the bass, drums, and piano stop playing allowing the groove to dissipate with
only the sample’s reverb sounding, thus ending the solo in a different texture then it started in at
2:04.
72
Figure 4.7 Instigation from “Lift Off/Mic Check” (2012) by Robert Glasper
Through transcription, samples are shown as an interactive member of the rhythm
section. In addition to their aesthetic value of connecting jazz with hip hop, both aurally and
culturally, samples participate in the musical dialogue, a role usually reserved for rhythm section
members. This shows that samples are not merely added to the sonic atmosphere in jazz/hip hop
to cue the listener that what they are hearing is influenced by hip hop, but instead serve a formal
role of adding to the rhythmic environment while complementing and accompanying the melody
or soloist as a member of the rhythm section.
Bass and Drum Lines
Traditional rhythm section members must adjust their improvised lines, so samples have musical
space to participate within the sonic soundscape. Bassists and drummers accommodate samples
by simplifying their lines and reducing their musical interactions. This serves two purposes: the
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73
reduced interaction within improvised lines allows for musical space that samples fill, and the
simplified lines are repeated emulating the aesthetic of drum and bass loops heard on rap.
The role of a drummer in a straight-ahead jazz ensemble is to keep time, establish groove,
set-up ensemble figures with fills, and interact with the soloist or melody. Traditionally, the
drummer refrains from playing repeated figures underneath the ensemble. This is “because if he
or she gets locked into playing the same way every time just because it’s the same written figure,
the music will sound boring and predictable.”
83
However, repetition is a key aesthetic in hip hop,
achieved through looping drum grooves that are created on a drum machine (e.g., Roland TR 808
Rhythm Composer) and commonly referred to as “break beats.” These break beats were sampled
and influenced from drum patterns played on disco and funk albums of the 1970s. Figures 4.8,
4.9, and 4.10 show three commonly sampled two-bar drum grooves used in hip hop, while,
figures 4.11 and 4.12 show jazz/hip hop drum loops that are created by live improvising
musicians.
84
The similarities between these hip-hop break beats and the jazz/hip hop drummers’
grooves include the use of the closed hi-hat on either eighth-note or sixteenth-note subdivisions,
the back beat placed on the snare drum on beats two and four, using either cross stick or snare
83
Dunscomb and Hill, Jazz Pedagogy, 223.
84
“Impeach the President” (1973) was sampled on hip-hop songs “Jump” (1992) by Kris Kross, “Gangsta’s
Fairytale 2” (1992) by Ice Cube, “The Message” (1996) by Nas, and more. “It’s a New Day” (1973) was sampled on
hip-hop songs, “Me and My Crew” (1993) by Mobb Deep, “That’s how I’m Livin’” (1993) by Ice-T, “Clubbed to
Death” (1995) by Rob Dougan, and more. “I’m Gonna Love you Just a Little More Baby” (1974) was sampled on
“Time to get Ill” (1986) by Beatstie Boys, “As the Rhyme Goes On” (1987) by Eric B. and Rakim, “Sweet Thing”
(1992) by Mary J. Blige, and more.
74
hits, and the accenting of the bass drum on beats one and three. Jazz/hip hop grooves differ from
the straight-ahead jazz drummer groove, referred to as “swing feel,” illustrated in figure 4.13 or
the unpredictable interaction we see in Elvin Jones’s comping on the first four bars of John
Coltrane’s first chorus of “Afro Blue-Live at Birdland” (1963), heard at 4:50 and shown in figure
4.14. Jones’s comping also illustrates common drum interactions during a solo section such as
chatter on the snare drum or toms, seen in bars 2 and 4, “dropping bombs,” which are loud
unpredictable hits in the bass drum, shown on the upbeats in bars 1 and 4, and unpredictable
phrasing in the ride cymbal. Jones’s interaction with a soloist also differs from jazz/hip hop
drummers’ comping, as seen in Chris Dave’s interaction behind Erykah Badu’s solo in “Afro
Blue” (2012), heard at 3:40 and illustrated in figure 4.15. Once again, Dave has restricted his
comping to a repeated and predictable pattern. Although it is more involved than his repeated
loop seen in figure 4.11, the line is repetitive and does not see the bomb drops or unpredictable
phrasing like in Jones’s comping.
Figure 4.8 Break beat from "Impeach the President" (1973) by the Honeydrippers
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75
Figure 4.9 Break beat from "It’s a New Day" (1973) by Skull Snaps
85
Figure 4.10 Break beat from "I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby" (1974) by Barry White
Figure 4.11 Drum pattern by Chris Dave on "Afro Blue" (2012)
Figure 4.12 Drum pattern by Terri Lyne Carrington on "Bells (Ring Loudly)" (2020)
85
The last sixteenth-note on beat four is interpreted as swung.
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76
Figure 4.13 Generic drum set swing feel
Figure 4.14 Elvin Jones’s improvised line on John Coltrane’s first chorus of "Afro Blue"
Figure 4.15 Chis Dave’s comping behind Erykah Badu on "Afro Blue" (2012)
The role of a bassist in a straight-ahead jazz ensemble is to establish time and outline
harmony, in addition to interacting with a soloist. Primarily, bassists improvise walk lines, which
is a succession of quarter notes that connect chord tones to outline the basic harmony of a
progression. Walk lines are a mixture of chord tones, non-harmonic tones, chromatic scales, and
modal or diatonic scales that cover the full range of the instrument. “These different approaches
allow (bassists) to create long flowing lines that are musically interesting and keep the
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77
momentum of the line going.”
86
Figure 4.16 illustrates a generic walk line over the first four bars
of an F blues. In bar one, we see an inversion of the chord tones within the key of F, in bar two
we see an E natural, a non-harmonic tone, and in bars three and four we see an F mixolydian
scale. Regardless of genre, bassists use these different approaches to connect chords.
Figure 4.16 Generic walk line over F blues
What differentiates jazz bass lines as compared to other styles is the rhythms used to
connect the chords, the range of the instrument used, and the repetition of the line. For example,
early hip-hop bass lines were looped samples taken from disco, funk, and R&B—like their
sampled drum counterparts. Hip-hop bass lines tend are rhythmically active, stay in the lower
range of the instrument, and accent beats one and three, as shown in figures 4.17 and 4.18.
87
86
Dunscomb and Hill, Jazz Pedagogy, 208.
87
The bass line from “Don’t Look Any Further” is sampled on Eric B. Rakim’s “Paid in Full” (1987) and Junior
M.A.F.I.A.’s “Getting Money (Remix).” The bass line from “Chameleon” is sampled on Digital Underground
“Underwater Rimes (Remix)” (1988) and “Get up Get Down” (1995) by Coolio.
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78
Figure 4.17 Bass line from "Don’t Look Any Further" (1984) by Dennis Edwards
Figure 4.18 Paul Jackson’s bass line from "Chameleon" (1974) by Herbie Hancock
Additionally, jazz/hip hop bassists are also influenced by jazz bassists who recorded live
with rappers. This is because jazz/hip hop bassists musically interact with other live performers
and samples in the same fashion as jazz bassists interacting with live rappers and drum machines.
There are two prominent recordings in which jazz bassists recorded with rappers. First is Ron
Carter’s bass line on “Verses from the Abstract” (1991), figure 4.19. Carter recorded in the
studio with rapper Kamaal “Q-Tip” Fareed and—like a bassist comping behind a melodic line—
he matched his improvised bass line to the phrasing of the rap. Carter recalled,
I asked him (Q-Tip) to rap it before we recorded so that I could hear the commas and the
length of the sections. I didn’t need to write anything down because I could hear the tune
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in my head. We did a few takes where I would move my commas around to match the
phrasing.
88
In Carter’s line, we see similarities to the bass loops heard in early rap, including octave jumps,
repeated motifs, accents on beats one and three, and greater rhythmic activity. Additionally, we
see influence from walk lines including chord tones and chromatic scales that outline an implied
harmony. Jazz/hip hop bassists copy this style of phrase matching in their improvised lines;
however, Carter’s line and the bass loops above primarily had little samples to perform with. For
example, Carter is only accompanied by a looped drum groove without any added samples. As
technology advanced and a greater number of samples were added, bassists limited their activity
so there was more musical space for other interacting rhythm section members and samples.
88
Dan Ouellette, “Beyond the Abstract: Jazz and Hip-Hop Commingle in Ron Carter’s Bass Lines,” DownBeat,
January 2009, 42.
80
Figure 4.19 Ron Carter’s bass line and Q-Tip’s rap from "Verses From the Abstract" (1991)
Derrick Hodge is a second jazz bassist (and also a renowned jazz/hip hop bassist) who
has collaborated with a rapper; he played an improvised bass line for Lonnie “Common” Lynn’s
“Be (Intro)” (2005). This project was recorded ten years before The Experiment (the first
recognized jazz/hip hop group, led by Robert Glasper) was formed, and before Hodge was
Rap
S.B ass
Once had a fe tish,
-
fe tish
-
for some bot ty.
-
Now I'm get ting
-
fun ky
-
in my rap and that's my du ty.
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7
Rap
S.B ass
Bro thers
-
tend tojock on the style in par ti
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cu
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lar. If you got the e go
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like some bro thers
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then I'll get with ya. But
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cuz my mouth is on the mo tor.
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ab stract
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81
established as a jazz/hip hop bassist. Figure 4.20 shows the improvised bass line that Hodge
loops under the first chorus of Common’s rap. Hodge restrains from playing outside the rhythmic
loop, only adding occasional fills on beat four. Furthermore, he outlines only an Eb-major chord
and D-minor seventh chord in each bar, and he stays within one octave of the instrument.
Hodge’s line compliments the other instruments heard in the flow, including improvising
synthesizer, piano, string samples, and drum set. Hodge’s characteristics of restraint here—
resisting the desire to play too rhythmically or chromatically, looping a motif, accenting on one
and three, filling on beat four, and limiting the range of the instrument—have influenced the
jazz/hip hop bassists who perform in similar highly rhythmic environments heard in jazz/hip hop,
shown in figures 4.21 and 4.22.
Figure 4.20 Derrick Hodge’s bass line on “Be (Intro)” (2005)
Figure 4.21 Derrick Hodge’s bass line on "Afro Blue" (2012)
StringBass
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82
Figure 4.22 Elin Sandberg’s bass line on "Come Sunday" (2015)
Jazz/hip hop bassists and drummers change their normative grooves and interactions,
allowing for musical space so that samples can participate in the sonic scaping. Jazz/hip hop
drummers are influenced by the break beats from early rap, and they change their comping by
using the closed hi-hat on either eighth-note or sixteenth-note subdivisions, placing a back beat
on the snare drum on beats two and four with either a cross stick or snare hit, accenting the bass
drum on beats one and three, and looping their improvised lines. Similarly, jazz/hip hop bassists
are influenced by early sampled bass lines used in rap and early collaborations between jazz
bassists and rappers. Jazz/hip hop bassists alter their comping style in this musical setting by
restraining their lines from being too rhythmic or chromatic, looping reoccurring motifs,
accenting beats one and three, filling on beat four, and limiting the range of the instrument.
Jazz/hip hop drummers and bassists intentionally restrain their playing to emulate rap’s musical
aesthetic and accommodate for the inclusion of samples within the rhythm section.
Conclusion
A jazz/hip hop rhythm section consists of traditional instrumentation (piano, guitar, bass, and
drums) and manipulated samples. Samples heard within the rhythm section serve multiple
purposes. They define the musical aesthetic of hip hop, establish the groove, form, and
atmosphere of a piece, act as a historical bridge both culturally and musically between the
6
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46
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66
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.
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83
listener and artist, and participate in the musical dialogue between the rhythm section and the
melody or soloist.
Melodic samples in jazz/hip hop are recorded by live musicians and are manipulated
using different compositional techniques, such as chopping, lifting, and splicing. These
manipulated samples accompany the melody or soloist through shared interactions with live
rhythm section members, which include call-and-response, texture change, phrase punctuation,
and instigation. These interactions increase the rhythmic activity of the music, build tension,
perpetuate forward momentum, and establish the dialogue between the rhythm section and
melody or soloist, a defining musical aesthetic of jazz.
In addition to manipulated samples, the backline of jazz/hip hop consists of live
performing musicians. Within jazz/hip hop rhythm sections, live bassists and drummers
improvise lines or grooves, but they restrict their comping, so that their machine counterparts
have musical space to interact. Furthermore, these lines or grooves are repeated, emulating the
sound of rap drum and bass loops, which are sampled and altered from published recordings.
For example, jazz/hip hop drummers refrain from using standard “swing feel” in their ride
cymbal or interaction through “chatter” and “dropping bombs” within their comping. Instead,
they pulsate eighth notes or sixteenth notes on a closed hi-hat, provide a back beat on the snare
drum, and accent the bass drum on beats one and three. Similarly, jazz/hip hop bassists refrain
from comping through walk lines, but instead loop reoccurring motifs that are limited in
rhythmic activity or chromaticism, accent beats one and three, and limit the range of the
instrument. By combing the musical aesthetics of jazz, which includes improvised drum and bass
lines and musical interaction, with the musical aesthetics of rap, which includes repetition and
sampling, the jazz/hip hop rhythm section is formed.
84
Conclusion
This study has provided a historical overview of jazz/hip hop, defined the aesthetic qualities of
the music, addressed the claim that jazz artists add hip hop to their projects for commercial
profit, and discussed performance techniques for jazz/hip hop drummers and bassists.
As we have seen, the history of jazz/hip hop starts in the 1980s with experimental
projects led by rap and jazz artists. Rappers featured jazz soloists on their projects, whereas jazz
musicians featured choruses of rap and samples over live rhythm sections comping. In the 2000s,
jazz/hip hop artists emerged and continued the practice of using live rhythm sections, featuring
choruses of rap, and using samples within their projects. However, jazz/hip hop artists differ
from their predecessors by expanding the harmonic and melodic language of their pieces,
embedding samples into rhythm section tracks, instead of only placing them in the sonic
foreground, and using active comping within the rhythm section.
Jazz/hip hop is an accumulation of musical aesthetics from rap and jazz. The rap
elements heard in jazz/hip hop include layering, prioritizing drum tracks and low frequency bass
lines, using vocoders, sampling, featuring a chorus of rap, repetition, and rupturing. The jazz
elements heard in jazz/hip hop are improvised solos, melodies played or embellished by a
saxophone or trumpet, acoustic instrumentation in the rhythm section, and complex harmonic
language. Listeners identify this music as a fusion because jazz/hip hop artists blend these
musical elements from rap and jazz.
However, jazz/hip hop artists are not merely adding musical aesthetics of rap to their jazz
projects, but instead embrace the culture of hip hop by including the imagery, vernacular, and
narratives associated with hip-hop cultural values. Jazz/hip hop artists use imagery and dress
associated with hip-hop culture within their album art. Additionally, they use the lyrical nature of
85
either sung or rapped choruses to project political themes and slang associated with hip-hop
culture.
Furthermore, jazz/hip hop is a Black art form created by Black artists. To study Black
music, we must trace the music to its historical roots, in Africa. The African elements jazz/hip
hop contains are call-and-response, syncopation, rhythmically complex soundscapes, and
guttural expressions. These codes are not unique to jazz/hip hop but are found in a majority of
Black musical genres, including rap and jazz as separate styles.
Jazz/hip hop artists produce music that reflects the environments in which they grew up.
Their fusion of hip hop and jazz stems from familial and aesthetic ties. Jazz/hip hop artists see
their music as a cultural expression of their histories/neighborhoods/childhoods or as an
amalgamation of the sonic world around them. Furthermore, they recognize that jazz is the root
of hip hop and combining the styles through shared musical aesthetics preserves the aesthetic
value of both jazz and hip hop.
Jazz/hip hop artists do not consider their arrangements of commercial successes as a form
of “selling out,” but as a continuation of the jazz tradition. Additionally, jazz/hip hop artists state
that their music maintains integrity because they are not forcing two styles together to gain a hip-
hop audience, but instead are performing both styles genuinely. Jazz/hip hop artists attribute their
commercial success to the audience’s recognition of their authentic performance of this hybrid
style.
The aesthetic marker for jazz/hip hop is the embedding of samples into the rhythm
section tracks, as opposed to keeping samples in the sonic foreground. Within this layer, samples
musically interact with the melody, soloists, and rhythm section members through musical
features such as, call-and-response, texture change, phrase punctuation, and instigation. This
86
allows for samples within jazz/hip hop to serve multiple purposes: creating sonic atmosphere,
serving formal conventions within a song, acting as a historical bridge both musically and
culturally for the informed listener, and participating in the musical dialogue.
In order for samples to participate in the musical dialogue, jazz/hip hop drummers and
bassists change their traditional jazz grooves and interactions. Jazz/hip hop drummers’ grooves
are influenced by break beats from early rap. Their comping includes the use of eighth-note or
sixteenth-note subdivisions on a closed hi-hat, placing a back beat on the snare drum, accenting
the bass drum on beats one and three, and looping their improvised lines. Similarly, jazz/hip hop
bassists are influenced by rap’s sampled bass lines and early collaborations between jazz bassists
and rappers. Jazz/hip hop bassists alter their comping by restraining their lines from being too
rhythmic or chromatic, looping reoccurring motifs, accenting beats one and three, filling on beat
four, and limiting the range of the instrument.
Jazz scholarship has neglected the emergence of this fusion, often combining jazz/hip
hop with any twenty-first century jazz projects that merge jazz with commercial music and is
technologically based. Stuart Nicholson states, “The social and cultural forces that helped shape
American jazz in the past are largely absent today, and have been replaced by the homogenizing
effect of the market place.”
89
Viewing modern jazz fusions as only commercially driven fails to
recognize each fusion’s aesthetic values, innovators, histories, and performance practices. In
order to understand modern jazz fusions’ commercial successes, we need to study these fusions
from musical perspectives, specifically observing the interplay between technology and
89
Stuart Nicholson, Is Jazz Dead?, 223.
87
musicians, the use by musicians of different styles in their hybrid musics, the musical influences
that inspired the fusion, and the function of technology as a participant or creator in the music.
These elements allow us to understand jazz/hip hop as a coherent musical style with a social and
artistic foundation, not simply two styles forced together to achieve mainstream recognition.
88
Appendix A: Artists Producing Jazz/Hip Hop
9
th
Wonder
Benjamin, Lakecia
Brown, Justin
Brown, Keith
Bruner, Ronald Jr.
Carrington, Terri Lyne
Coleman, Steve
Cook, Braxton
Dave, Chris
Fauntleroy, James
Flying Lotus
Glasper, Robert
Hancock, Herbie
Hargrove, Roy
Hathaway, Lalah
Hill, Marquis
Hodge, Derrick
Kiefer
Lewis, Marcus
Madlib
Martin, Terrace
Mayo, Michael
89
Miller, Marcus
Osby, Greg
Pinson
QuestLove
Scott, Christian
Spalding, Esperanza
Thundercat
Washington, Kamasi
90
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Spotify audio.
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96
Curriculum Vitae
Molly Redfield, D.M.A.
Email: [email protected]
Education
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
D.M.A., String Performance, 2022
M.M., Jazz Studies, 2019
California State University, Sacramento
B.MU.E., 2017
B.M., Jazz Studies, 2017
