Jazz Is Dead Tour brings legendary players to August Hall
SAN FRANCISCO -- The brainchild of noted hip-hop and soul producers Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge, Jazz Is Dead: The Tour comes to August Hall Thursday with '70s jazz greats Brian Jackson, Doug Carn and Henry Franklin and more.
First coming to fame as rapper, DJ and producer for golden-era NYC group A Tribe Called Quest, Muhammad help craft the group's influential, jazz-informed beat aesthetic alongside production partner and de facto leader Q-Tip. The pair also worked with Jay Dee aka J Dilla as part of the production team the Ummah, while Muhammad later became part of the short-lived R&B supergroup Lucy Pearl with former En Vogue singer Dawn Robinson and ex-Tony! Toni! Toné! mainstay Raphael Saadiq for one album.
The producer first collaborated with Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Younge on a 2014 album by Bay Area rap group Souls of Mischief. Younge had established himself as a force to be reckoned with through the orchestral jazz funk of his early group Venice Dawn and his neo-blaxploitation soundtrack to the satirical comedy Black Dynamite in 2009. Rising admiration for his cinematic production skills led to full-album collaborations with Wu-Tang Clan MC Ghostface Killah and Delphonics singer William Hart.
Younge and Muhammad would begin a fruitful partnership that has included acclaimed soundtrack work for the Netflix show Luke Cage and recordings with their group the Midnight Hour for Younge's Linear Labs imprint. More recently, the pair launched its ambitious Jazz Is Dead project. Initially focusing on live concerts with such heavily-sampled luminaries as Roy Ayers and Lonnie Liston Smith, Jazz Is Dead has also brought some of those '70s jazz influences and inspirations into the studio to record full albums, including such giants as Black Jazz recording artists Doug and Jean Carn, saxophonist Gary Bartz, longtime Gil Scott-Heron collaborator Brian Jackson and Brazilian masters Azymuth, Marco Valle and João Donato as well as like-minded younger musicians like Los Angeles group Katalyst.
While Los Angeles music fans have had regular opportunities to experience the groundbreaking concerts live at the intimate Lodge Room in Highland Park, Jazz Is Dead: The Tour marks the first time the collective is bringing the show on the road. Making its first stop in San Francisco before heading north to Portland and an appearance at the Thing Festival in Washington State, Muhammad and Younge will be joined onstage by Jackson, Carn, noted Black Jazz bassist Henry Franklin (who has played with Ayers, Ornette Coleman, Willie Bobo and Stevie Wonder) and Katalyst as the house band for the tour. The San Francisco kickoff at August Hall will also include DJ sets from local turntable talents Cool Chris, King Most, Nina Sol and Platurn.
Jazz Is Dead: The Tour
Thursday, Aug. 25, 8 p.m. $30
August Hall
