How to Score a Sunset – A Meditative Mix of Mostly Modern Jazz

The conventional wisdom that jazz essentially died around the same time John Coltrane did isn’t completely unfounded. The sixties saw the artform being constructed and reinvented to a point that by the time the seventies hit, there seemed to be nowhere left to go, to a point where even Miles Davis’ explorations began to feel futile. By the eighties, soft rock radio did to jazz what Ibiza would eventually do with house music, offering a false allure of sophistication in favor of the altruism and grit that originally forged the genre. The nineties saw something of a resurgence as New York hip hop resurrected the genre through use of sampling and a handful of crossover projects like Guru’s Jazzmatazz and Blue Note Records’ woefully misguided signature act, Us3. These endeavors sounded fresh at the time, but ended up aging about as well as a carton of milk. I won’t call it a comeback, but there does seem to be a resurgence in experimental jazz percolating in contemporary music. How To Score a Sunset features some of the best modern jazz alongside some undersung selections from yesteryear.

Track List

Stanton Davis and the Ghetto Mysticism Band – Nida

Myself 69 – Maima Jam

Joseph Shabason – Long Swim

Kamall Williams – Medina

Onyx Collective – Fruit Stand

Yussef Kamaal – Ayla

Arp – Ozu

Leon Vynehall – It Breaks (Chapter IX)

The Tempress – You Made the Sunshine

Axel Kryglier – Taxi Nocutno

E Ruscha V – Who Are You

June11 – The Luckiest Man

Kamasi Washington – Testify