Home » Music » Electronica » Jazzanova: The Sound of Summer in the Dead of Winter

Jazzanova: The Sound of Summer in the Dead of Winter

© Katherine Wharmby

This week I introduced myself to Jazzanova. I first heard of the band when they were mentioned on a friend of a friend's online journal. She praised them highly, and later bought their new 2 CD set, The Remixes 1997-2000. I'd heard enough about them to know they played techno music, so, intrigued, I decided to search for them on Napster (yes, I admit it, I downloaded for free. I was shocked and chastened, however, when, upon playing a BS2000 track, Internet Explorer activated with a message from Grand Royal Records politely imploring me to buy the album I'd just sampled. If more labels did this, maybe more of us freeloading kids would be shamed into acquiring our music legally.)
Jazzanova, according to their website, are a German DJ/producer collective. They met while DJing at Berlin's Delicious Donuts club, and they've been working together since 1995. Their music's a mixture of jazz, house, and bossanova, with all kinds of other styles thrown in; reggae, salsa, and trance are only a few examples. As well as making their own tracks, they're fond of remixing the work of other artists. They've Jazzanova-ized such diverse artists as reggae icon Lee Scratch Perry, house veterans 4 Hero, and post-mods The Style Council. Their remix of the latter's Eighties hit You're The Best Thing is recognizable-just. It wafts on a cloud of samba beats and dreamy upright bass, with Paul Weller's voice muted and distant.
Ursula Rucker's Circe sounds like Justify My Love, but adds bucketloads of soul to the formula. A deep chime and a sparse raindrop-like beat are the only accompaniments to Rucker's seductive voice. Jazzanova's own track Ski-Fifths is a perfect mixture of jazz and trance. A female voice weaves in and out of a complex 4/4 beat that sounds so varied and organic I'm almost convinced it's live. In the background, synths coo and hum.
These three tracks are completely different, yet all have that Jazzanova feel. The best way to describe the Jazzanova sound is that it's the sound of summer, in all its forms: hanging out on a Brooklyn street corner in 100-degree heat, lying in five feet high daisy-strewn grass in a field in Hampshire, or strolling down Ipanema Beach at sunset. On Napster, someone had posted Jazzanova live at Sputnik. I downloaded part 2 of the set. The seamless melding of different styles, from samba to rap to lounge to jazz, was equally danceable and relaxing. It's music that lets you carry a bit of sunshine with you all year round. I'm going to pick up the box set as soon as humanly possible.