Different Strokes

Now, I hate anything that could be described as 'Acid Jazz' as much as the next man (assuming the next man has 'Death to False Metal' inexpertly tattoed on his forehead). I realise that holding this much hurt around for a genre that died on it's arse somewhere in the mid-90s is a bit counter productive, but just the thought of red-jeaned goatee-strokers sitting around thinking they'd just discovered 'groove' still rankles. OK, so this partly comes from school days when I had the piss taken out of me for buying an original vinyl copy of the Funkadelic classic 'One Nation Under a Groove'...Six months later the same lot were sitting around in Kangol hats talking about how they'd always been into 70s soul and funk. Grrr.

I digress.

This dislike of all things jazz/funk-lite-like (catchy, huh?) has meant I approach the Broken Beat/Nu Jazz scene with trepidation. Now you won't catch me snogging Gilles Peterson just yet, but I was really presently surprised to hear a Nu Jazz version of Last Nite by the Strokes in a bar last night that (gently, tastefully etc) kicked arse. It's by Jumbonics, about whom I know very little (apart from that whoever wrote their bio deserves a slap). Have a listen here, or hear a longer version as part of this podcast (it starts at 10'26"). Enjoy. Just keep away from those red jeans.