About halfway through, the groove abruptly halts, but it's a false ending and quickly restarts to signal the improvisational passage. Bugge's electric piano solo is clearly inspired by Herbie Hancock's Head Hunter days with it's delicate balance of classic jazz voicings, funk vamps, and well-placed echoes and reverbs.
It's not just Wesseltoft's jammin' like he's Herbie that makes this tune an attractive piece of danceable jazz. That ultra-cool groove of "Change" is constructed by four decades of sounds coming together in perfect tandem: the acoustic bass of sixties jazz, the warm Fender Rhodes of seventies fusion, the icy synth of eighties dance music and the relentlessly percolating beat of nineties electronica. It's almost like scrapbook for the ears covering forty years of funk-jazz history.
The song winds down with layers disappearing one by one until the whole song vanishes just short of a ten and a half minute sprint. Or rather, it sure seems like a sprint. "Change" may not represent an entirely new conception of jazz. But it was well-conceived, nonetheless.
Listen: Bugge Wessletoft "Change"
"One Track Mind" is a more-or-less weekly drool over a single song selected on a whim and a short thesis on why you should be drooling over it, too.
Article comments
1 - Britany From London Callin'
Pico u know, i dont know if he is Nujazz..alot of the material out today...how do u tell the difference between Jazz and Funk? I am in England so i see what u mean though. I am not sure if i would call it NuJazz...maybe its NuFunk?
I listen to Alica Keys, that is Nujazz to me and hip hop to someone else. I listen to Teddy Brent, that is funk to me and NuJazzto someone else.