Don’t mind the big Lowdown and Lijn5 logo’s, this is just a nice impression of Jose James performing at KSpace/Amsterdam in May 2008. We have a longer audio version of this interview, where we talk more about the great John Coltrane songs he did, but we have to explore our archive deeper for that one – soon!
The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble has been featured a lot on Future Vintage. The story of seven brothers from Chicago, sons of jazz musician (and astronomer!) Phil Cohran who form a brass band and start to play on the streets is charming in many ways. It’s a story about family, about a hiphop generation that still seeks sounds from generations before and about making a name for yourself. Hypnotic might have started on the streets, they also did a show with Mos Def during the James Brown tribute night in the Apollo Theatre and toured trough Europe a few times (they basicly took over North Sea Jazz festival in 2007).
It was probably KC the Funkaholic who introduced me to Hypnotic, and after hearing War and seeing some Youtube footage I was sold. So I interviewed two of the brothers by phone, just before they came over for the first time, in july ‘07. Here’s 13 minutes of music and talk by Hudah & Cid about their history.
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Some months later brass seemed more back in fashion than ever, especially when Jay-Z came out with Roc Boys (which contains a sample from the Menahan Street Band). Hypnotic felt their style got copied in the video a bit. But anyway, we had a nice conservation backstage, just after the show in Paradiso, december ‘07.
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I used to read the Hypnotic blog now and then, but lately it’s quiet (they switched to a new blog, I prefer the old one). Still, I’m happy with my War and Sankofa records, and also with On The Beach – a record by Phil Cohran that got re-issued and I basicly discovered trough the music of his sons.
On a sunny September afternoon in Amsterdam I met up with Carlos Niño, who had a show with the Dublab crew from LA that evening, and just released the second album of creative jazz ensemble Build An Ark, called Dawn. A central figure in the LA music scene Carlos Niño seems to be all about connecting people and bridging the gap between different generations. He works for instance with Daedelus, Flying Lotus and SA-RA but also with jazz vocalist Dwight Trible and multi-instrumentalist/composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. And he has a weekly radioshow for more then a decade now: Spaceways radio. Instead of talking about all his different projects, we kept it basic, and focused on his vision about the healing power of music.
Also listen to a mix Carlos recently did for the Faces Records podcast on Samurai.FM.