US artist Roy Hargrove's instruments
© AFP/File Valery Hache MONTREAL (AFP) - "I believe electro-jazz, in its purest form, is stagnating," said Laurent Saulnier, an organizer of one of the world's biggest annual music festivals.
Artists "have picked it up and experimented with it, pushing it to new levels," he said in an interview with AFP, pointing to Brazilian disc jockey (DJ) Amon Tobin and Britain's The Cinematic Orchestra.
"I think jazz in order not to become stale and static has to move, has to accept contemporary technology and society and culture to actually be relevant," commented Jason Swinscoe, leader of The Cinematic Orchestra.
"I think the future of jazz lies in openness, combining lots of different things, and not to just be a reworking of something from the 30s or 40s," he said.
The group's latest album, "Ma Fleur," has a subtle acoustic flavor mixed in with "more electronics" than its predecessors.
"It's got a different kind of focus. It's more acoustic. Less drums. There's a change in the pallet of sounds. The drum sits back a little bit," Swinscoe explained.
DJ Amon Tobin, renowned for combining a variety of musical influences including drum'n'bass, Brazilian beats and jazz, strayed from his roots with the release of his latest album, "Foley Room," but his devoted fans did not seem to mind.
A craftsman works on saxophone bells
© AFP/File Eric Feferberg "I still love jazz, but injecting it into my music is less important now because the style is so saturated; everyone is playing electro-jazz," he told local French-language daily Le Devoir.
Musical experimentation remains a top priority for Amon, as demonstrated in his latest album, which gleaned hundreds of sound samples from all over, combining and transforming, and finally orchestrating them.
For Canadian Kid Koala, who mixed hip-hop, rock and electro-jazz at the festival, and produced a haunting remix of the classic song "Moon River" from the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's," jazz is a major source of inspiration.
"Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk (are) some of my favorite live performers," he said.
"Their connection with their instruments is just really inspiring to me. I just hope to someday be half as connected with turntables as they were with their instruments."
Indeed, Kid Koala recreated Armstrong's 1959 hit "Basin Street Blues," scratching a trumpet solo atop a patchwork of background instruments, cut into single notes and pasted into a recording.
The result is music which sounds like the original but moves differently, like an animated character walking, slightly distorted.
"There's some improvisation in what Kid Koala does that echoes what jazz men do," said Laurent Saulnier. "His swing is incredible, especially given his chosen instrument (a turntable)," he said.
©AFP