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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a little unfocused, July 15, 2004
Jazz labels recently realized that most people under 30 hip enough to appreciate jazz were not listening to it, but listening jazz being reinterpreted by enlightened underground DJs and producers instead. They said, "hey, if these guys were working for us instead of pirating all our classics, it would be a win win situation." And theoretically, they were right. Blue Note has been doing novelty pieces with hip hop producers for over half a decade, and Verve has done their Remixed thing on more of a dance/electronica tip. I think Blue Note's stuff has been a little stronger than it's been given credit for, but still not that great.Enter Madlib. He has a pretty good following for someone with so many alter egos and spotty if incredibly promising work. He uses old jazz samples better than most, so Blue Note pays him to do a whole album by himself. Some of the tunes he chooses are predictable; Mystic Brew, Montara, Song For My Father, and Footprints are very nice tunes, but overdone. Some of my favorites are Please Set Me at Ease, Stepping into Tomorrow, and Peace/Dolphin Dance Madlib's reworking is according to his established but always hip trademark; there's nothing here YNQ fans won't expect, maybe a little less than they will expect. Even though the atmosphere of the album is thick and effective, the whole thing feels a little half baked. Like he knew he was good and just didn't put his everything into it, or maybe he tried really hard and just wasn't feeling things. In any case, at least he doesn't play keyboards too much like on Stevie (which is worse than this), and when he does on Dolphin Dance, it sounds good. If you don't already have Angles Without Edges, slap yourself and buy a copy. If you cant get enough of the mad blunted sound, then buy this. But Madlib is best when he doesn't shackle his style to reinterpretations like here and the YNQ album Stevie, and even better with people besides himself to rhyme over the beats (check out Madvillain).
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
i love Lib but yo,, January 5, 2004
Madlib has a nasty, scratchy, loose feel to his production. A producer that enjoys the space between each element used. There is space between his dry snares, cymbal washes, cow bwlls, and kitchen sink atmospherics. I love his work, but this release is not all its made out to be. A friend of mine who produces cuts said that he would have spent about 5 years in the blue note vault with an MPC and a mr.coffee before even a peep was put on wax. It seems that the project was rushed in an attempt to make a profit off of the cred. lib has among people in the record buying world. A world that has never been smaller. The best cuts are already solid blue note classics Re: "mystic bounce" -( already man handled on an old ass tribe cut), "stepping into tomorrow" - and "slims return"- (which Chief X cel used on an early Blackalicious side). The sinkers on this piece are the tracks Madlib plays keys on. I will never know what possessed him to play a keyboard on top of Hancocks "Dolphin Dance", but its kind of like drawing on a Reid Miles cover. Bad news son. So someone tell Lib to lay off the rhodes, and stick to making esoteric bangers. Peace.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
if you already know madlib, then you already know it's good., June 27, 2003
Everyone familiar with Madlib's work will probably be approaching this album with Yesterday's New Quintet on their minds. And that's natural, as it's the only other widely distributed jazz-takes-the-center-stage long player that Madlib's put out, i.e. it's the one that most of the people are most familiar with. The jazz influence is obvious in a lot of his work, but on these records jazz is the dominant theme. As compared to YNQ, the hip-hop element seems more apparent here, which may make it more accessible to anyone that YNQ didn't quite click with, should such people exist. Still, Madlib's solo efforts have always struck me as being more for the heads---musician's musician type stuff, and though a lot of people have given him the time and attention he deserves, I still feel Madlib might take getting used to for some folks. On this record About half of the songs are "remixes" of old blue note recordings while the other half are "remakes," performed by Madlib, his alter egos, and various other personnel. Still the jazz/beats thing, but now there's cuts and rhymes coming into it (not too heavily, but they're there). Though it makes for a more obvious wedding between hip-hop and jazz, the great thing for me is that Madlib's music doesn't turn into some silly hybrid. This isn't an electronic musician doing his best to approximate a certain sound that he has come to associate with the idea of "jazz," and it's not just a saxophone loop and a beat, either. the fact that he understands and feels this music comes through---the music develops and changes, flows in and out of itself and maintains this for the length. It doesn't get pretentious. He's paying respect to a label, a sound that he loves and has grown with, and though it comes across as pretty personal to me, it's also a good way to get someone on a jazz vibe who might not have gone that route ordinarily---this is still music for everybody.
If you like madlib, you'll still like him. If you don't know his stuff and don't have a strong feel for jazz but are still interested this is maybe a better intro than YNQ, though it's hard for me to say that with conviction as I like it all. Give it a chance, at least, if you don't like it now you will eventually, so long as you trust me and give it the effort it deserves.
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