Recording of the Week, Jean Carne, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad, 'Jazz Is Dead 012: Jean Carne'

Jean Carne

Jazz Is Dead is the product of duo Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, a recording project-turned-label whose first edition Jazz Is Dead 001 brought together jazz musicians like Roy Ayers, Marcos Valle, and Doug Carn just to name a few, piling into the studio with Younge and Muhammad to lay down some jams, while other past Jazz Is Dead editions have focussed on particular artists have included American saxophonist Gary Bartz, Brazilian bossa pianist João Donato, and multi-instrumentalist Brian Jackson.

Both Younge and Muhammad have their own storied backgrounds in the music world, though both share a common love of jazz and experience in hip-hop music. Adrian Younge, surprisingly, has more of a law background – one of his earliest careers was working in MTV’s legal department, no doubt making him a savvy businessman to have on the JID team. Besides his own solo music releases, much of Younge’s discography is comprised of composing and producing roles, with credits including Twelve Reasons to Die and its sequel by Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan fame (the album is even prefaced with Adrian Younge presents…), on top of producing the odd track for other emcees like Common and Kendrick Lamar.

Adrian Younge (left) & Ali Shaheed Muhammad (right)

Muhammad, on the other hand, is best known for his time spent as one-third of A Tribe Called Quest, early progenitors of the hip-hop sup-genre dubbed ‘jazz-rap’ for its heavy sampling of old jazz records in its beats. Releasing five studio records over the course of eight years in the 1990’s with ‘Tribe, Muhammad reunited with his former bandmates in 2016 for one final record, We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service, ultimately marking the end of the project following the passing of his comrade Phife Dawg a few months before the album’s release. Muhammad and Younge met as early as 2013 during the production of There Is Only Now by hip-hop group Souls of Mischief, with Young handling the production duties and Muhammad appearing as the album’s narrator; the two also collaborated on both seasons of the Marvel TV series Luke Cage, and released an album under the name The Midnight Hour in 2018, ultimately launching the Jazz Is Dead album series in 2020.

Now proudly twelve editions in, the pair have entered the studio with vocalist Jean Carne (former wife of the aforementioned Doug Carn), an artist whose presence in jazz, gospel music, and R&B has been felt for many years . Mostly known for her work in the 1970s on the Black Jazz label, sometimes alongside her husband Doug, you can hear her on the recordings of other musicians from Norman Connors and Lonnie Liston Smith to Michael Jackson, and also enjoyed her own successful singles like the buttery smooth soul hit ‘Don’t Let It Go To Your Head’. Recent performances by Carne have been fairly sparse, with Jazz Is Dead being the first full-length release since 2015’s Give It Up which followed a relatively long break from recording after 1995’s Love Lessons.

For the album, it’s just Muhammad and Younge taking on the instrumentals this time; Muhammad’s bass guitar is a commanding presence on every instrumental on the record, propping up the heavy grooves, fluid walking lines and leads – I didn’t realise he had the chops! Elsewhere lush keys are layered into the grooves like the breezy tune ‘The Summertime’, while soaring synth leads and busy drumming kick the otherwise relatively kicked-back ‘Black Rainbows’ up into stratospheric territory. At one point boasting a five-octave range – and it sounds like she’s still got it – Carne flexes her acrobatic vocal chops even while scat-singing, more often than not she’s not singing full verses, but single chants or mantras, while the absence of a solo instrument like a saxophone or trumpet is supplemented by some extended, upper-limit-reaching scat passages.

Many tracks here riff on spiritual jazz sounds, like the psychedelic ‘My Mystic Life’ where spaced-out Rhodes tones and some Curtis Mayfield-evoking funk guitars accompany Carne singing about finding a life on Mars (I imagine without the involvement of a certain South African billionaire), and the sound palette is suitably wide and tasteful, the pair’s wealth of production knowledge slotting each component together dovetail-like. Younge and Muhammad’s ‘Jazz Is Dead’ series continues to confirm that it’s anything but, celebrating the work of not only modern youngsters but also of veterans; if you’re after some proper psychedelic jazz soup with all the right ingredients, Jean Carne and Jazz Is Dead have you covered.