<Thoughts? Do these pretty much peg it?>

no. i don't mean to come off as some know-it-all, but i feel like the person that wrote that wasn't part of the scene(s) they're writing about--i was. well, i wasn't in london at all, but i read about the scene there and nyc and was part of the 2nd generation here in l.a. i put on events, dj'ed and attended other events that were part of the acid-jazz scene here. generally, if i didn't attend an event i know someone that was part of it.

my responses:

<Acid jazz (sometimes groove jazz) is a musical genre that combines jazz influences with elements of soul music, funk, disco and hip hop.>

while i take issue with the term "groove jazz" (jazz was groovin' long before acid-jazz) every thing there is accurate except they're not accounting for things like "funky or soul"-jazz from the 60s & 70s. maybe they're implying it, but if you don't know jazz history then you might not get that. many londoners tended to think of "acid-jazz" (at the time) as what we now call "rare-groove"--old funky jazz tunes played as dance music.

<Largely initiated in London and gaining the name from the Acid Jazz record label>

you remember me talking about gilles peterson coining the term? he and eddie piller founded and ran this label. he later moved on to form "talkin' loud" (named for the james brown tune.)

<Young Disciples>

this group's music was sample-based--the main 2 guys were djs. in addition to them was singer/lyricist carleen anderson (niece of vicki anderson--a james brown associate/employee.) they added the skills of mick talbot & steve white (keys & drums respectively from the highly influential group led by paul weller called *the style council.*) btw, young disciples were on the talkin' loud label.

a good compilation series to give you an idea of what the music was like in acid-jazz clubs back in the heyday 90s is "totally wired" on the acid-jazz label. it's a mix of old music, "new music" and the "retro" stuff that was a large part of the movement.

part of the issue i take with their view is that they don't really give any credit to the djs that really started the whole scene. talk to anyone that's a real veteran of the scene, and they'll tell you that it wasn't primarily band-driven like the wikipedia people seem to be saying--it was a dj scene first. the djs are the ones who made the connections between the (at first) pre-existing music (when it was a primarily retro-scene) and then began to produce new music using elements of the old music they loved--samples and working with musicians/singers. even snowboy--who primarily is known for doing latin music and is a percussionist--is a dj.

<A typical acid jazz group would consist... (snip) >

acid-jazz compilations from the period in question fly in the face of this. it was BOTH live and programmed/sampled music. that's one of the reasons it is so hard to define what acid-jazz is--it's not just one thing.

<Nu-jazz typically ventures farther into the electronic territory than does its close cousin, acid jazz (or groove jazz), which is generally closer to earthier funk, soul and rhythm and blues, although releases from noted groove jazz artists such as the Groove Collective blur the distinction between the styles.>

hrm...

from my experience, nu-jazz was coined to refer to the stuff that was more influenced by jazz than the soul or funk stuff, but wasn't necessarily ANY more electronic. for instance most of the nu-jazz stuff that i've heard is an attempt to sound more organic, really. consequently, i wasn't as interested in a lot of it because it wasn't as dance-oriented. the other thing is that "acid-jazz" as a term was dead with the jazz-dance (my preferred term) cognascenti. if you were to refer to gilles peterson, patrick forge, or any of the other leading lights of that scene as "acid-jazz" after about 96 or 97, they would bristle. the term "future funk" was becoming popular then, but it was even more inaccurate than "acid-jazz" so it wasn't long for this world either...

really the bible of this whole scene was/(is?) a magazine called "straight no chaser."

www.dustygroove.com/snc.htm

i think that's enough for now. no-one wants to read a novella of "acid-jazz--the t-bird opinion" or do they? :)