Impulsive! Revolutionary Jazz Reworked

The remix phenomenon continues apace with this fine set of Impulse classics reworked by some of the more respectable electronica artists of the 2000s. With a collection of source material that includes George Russell, Charles Mingus, Pharoah Sanders, and John Coltrane, among others, the set is already moving in the right direction, but the inventive, sometimes radical reworkings by the likes of Prefuse 73, the RZA, Kid Koala, and Sa Ra put this a cut above your average pedestrian, lounge-vibed, electronica/jazz outing.|

Let electronica upstarts into Impulse!'s well-revered vaults and you've got risky business, but the names chosen for Impulsive! are already a good sign and there's a pretty good chance this group is going to handle these serious jazz classics with proper reverence. They do, either capturing the spirit of the original tracks or using bits of the originals to come up with something more their own while keeping the garish monster at bay. Genius trio Sa-Ra set the bar high with the former technique, updating the hustle and bustle of that "something else town" New York City from George Russell's late 50s vision to something more attention-deficit-disorder and 21st century. RZA turns "II B. S." into a reverb heavy skeleton dance and offers another argument that these ambitious/sacrilegious collections should exist as they turn out the occasional gem. Telefon Tel Aviv make Oliver Nelson sound much more precious than he should by coating his music in strings and then shy glitches, but tracks like these at least point to Impulse! being edgier and bolder in attitude than Verve, whose own remix series started with more of a whimper. Not sounding much different than their proper releases, Prefuse 73 and Kid Koala fold the source material as they would any other, while Gerardo Frisina and DJ Dolores take the easy way out and pump-up lighter, soulful numbers for the smarter, more cosmopolitan dancefloors. Everything else pleasingly fades into the background leaving Impulse! and the remixers' reputations unharmed. ~ David Jeffries