After launching Jazz Is Dead 001 in 2020 — a compilation that featured vibraphonist Roy Ayers, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Brazilian jazz-fusion combo Ayzmuth, singer Marcos Valle and keyboardists João Donato, Doug Carn and Brian Jackson — Jazz Is Dead issued full-length serial LPs with each of those artists, playing along with a consortium of relatively unknown L.A.-based musicians, as well as Younge and his main co-conspirator, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, on an assortment of instruments — bass, guitar, clarinet, keyboards and percussion among them.Younge likens making those albums to giving the musicians their flowers while they are still living.
Jazz Is Dead’s first batch of LPs became collectors’ items among crate-diggers who connect the dots between jazz samples used during hip-hop’s halcyon years and the original source material, often released on obscure labels likeBlack Jazz, Perception and Strata East. Younge and Muhammad’s goal wasn’t so much to give the artists a 21st-century overhaul as it was to evoke the sensibilities of their respective artistry during their heyday, which often was the late 1960s and early ’70s.
When discussing Jazz Is Dead’s artistic progression in the past two years, Younge compares it to a television series that steadily blossoms into greatness. He and Muhammad gained a lot of insight from working with their heroes such as Ayers, Bartz and Valle during the first run. In turn, they incorporated some of those lessons into the second series.
“Our first series was basically us realizing that we could create a proof of concept,” Younge theorized. “The fact that we could actually bring in someone like Roy Ayers or Marcos Valle to record with us. We learned so much from them. We grabbed some of the energy that gave us and poured into the second series of albums. It’s not easier for us to do it now; it’s more us having a better understanding of what we’re doing.”
JAZZ IS DEAD 005 – Doug Carn, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad
JAZZ IS DEAD 006 – Gary Bartz, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad