10. Guru, “Loungin’” (Jazzmatazz, Vol. 1; Chrysalis, 1993)
“Yeah, I’m loungin’. I got my man Donald Byrd on the horn.” Jazzmatazz remains one of the most exciting developments in jazz during the 1990s: a hip-hop album featuring a rapper (that would be Guru) accompanied by a live jazz combo. Byrd’s is the first voice heard on the album, playing a repeated figure over Guru’s spoken introduction. He then plays two overdubbed trumpet lines—one open, one with a Harmon mute—on “Loungin’.” It’s low-key, mostly because Guru keeps both Byrd tracks at a lower volume than his own voice. Byrd gets fairly ornate, especially on the open track, in the second half of “Loungin’” (as always, in short, concise, but technically dazzling statements). To a great extent, though, it’s Byrd’s very presence that’s a pioneering achievement on Jazzmatazz. The dimensions of this “experimental fusion of hip-hop and jazz” are only now, more than a quarter-century later, being sorted out.
