Even though most people don’t listen to it; Jazz is cool. At least that’s how its been played back to us. Even those of us that weren’t there to experience its quick burning flame have romantic imagery of uptown heroin fueled sessions of the giants of jazz in black and white blurring all boundaries of music, culture, and race. Truth or not, no one can escape that it’s hip to like Jazz (even if you don’t) . Now, if someone were to mention jazz fusion or worse yet… smooth jazz… you’re likely to imagine the lobby at the worlds most boring dentist office. Its the music of ‘oatmeal man’, the least controversial nice guy that drives a hybrid, meticulously plans his 401k, and makes his kid wear full padding & helmet rollerblading in the driveway… smiling all the while as his wife brow beats him.

However, not all fusion is as boring as your glassy eyes might indicate. In the trenches of sampling, one smooth jazz fusionist stands out as not quite like the others. Bob James, most famous for the theme from Taxi (a tv show you’ve probably never saw (with Latka)) but also created some of the most sampled songs in hip hop history. “Nautilus” has been most famously sampled in Eric B. & Rakim’s “Follow the Leader”, Run-D.M.C.’s “Beats to the Rhyme”, Ghostface Killah’s “Daytona 500” and Jeru the Damaja’s “My Mind Spray” , while the first four measures of “Mardi Gras”  is one of hip hop’s fundamental breakbeats (think Run DMC’s “Peter Piper” and LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells”), and the sampling of Bob James doesn’t stop there. And all that aside, these songs aren’t horrible oatmeal either, though you may want to stay away from his later works.

Throwback: Bob James – Take Me To Mardi Gras (don lowed)

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Throwback: Bob James – Nautilus (don lowed)

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Those that have been keepin’ the faith already know.

Throwback: Bob James – Sign Of Times (don lowed)

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