- A rousing tribute to Waajeed's hometown of Detroit that infuses classic house and techno with jazz, and the kind of soul you just can't fake.
- When Asseem Waajeed—a producer, musician, educator, and full-time Detroiter—announced his new album, Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz, he released the track "Motor City Madness," along with a video showcasing local Black artists, record shops and vinyl pressing plants. It's a reassuring, confident visual reminder of the multi-billion dollar electronic music industry that started here in the Black American city of Detroit. Waajeed's 20 years of producing contemporary Black music in various forms—cofounding Slum Village with the late J Dilla, fronting Platinum Pied Pipers and collaborating with Carl Craig, Theo Parrish and Underground Resistance—makes him more than a trusted source to assert these facts. And Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz is a full spectrum compendium of it, with jazz accents that flow over jacking house rhythms and hip-hop-meets-techno—and footwork and drill—textures.
There's a recurring statement embedded in those inescapable geeking bass lines that so many folks try to copy "but just can't get it down right," to quote Grand Puba. Here, on Waajeed's debut for Berlin label Tresor, he weaves this sound through arrangements that sound far cleaner than his own label name Dirt Tech Reck would have you believe. These cuts point at Kevin Saunderson one second and Terrence Parker the next. The rhythm tracks are interspersed with interludes of people marching, chanting and protesting in the streets, from too many junctures of injustice and moments of social unrest over the past couple of years. The message is not simply sent home—it's shouted from the cheap seats, because you probably haven't heard it loud enough yet.
Waajeed's tracks are a lovely and soulful transformative art form, cadences and communications passed down from African tribes through the church, the blues, Black marching bands and fraternity step shows. It's also a uniquely American music, a derivative of those large jazz bands from decades ago, now made from machines that blink and pulse in the dark, coming from underserved, disenfranchised and, most emphatically, Black America. Not the chic Berlin clubs, nor the desert raves, not places where DJs toss cakes at the hordes or perform beside pyrotechnics. This music comes from the struggle.
Still, Waajeed clearly states in the liner notes that the focus of this album is on the glory. While Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz can be played alongside and within protest, it's more apt for the quotidian moments that exist outside of the gaze of oppression. It's a reminder that although violence and injustice looms, it is not our only story, and that we are much more than what oppresses us. The album "celebrates Black leisure and play"—the joys that persist in spite of the depleting realities of the world.
And it accomplishes this through 12 songs that feature second-line horn runs, temperature-changing strings, some of the most entrancing bass lines on the planet and jazz with jacking drums underneath it. As is always the case, context is everything. It defines what we're looking for in that bass-bin sound bath, courtesy of the mighty griot's drum. Following up on 2018’s From The Dirt—a ten-song journey through his hometown via hip-hop, soul, techno and electro—filled with sweaty, I'm-out-way-past-my-bedtime religious moments—this new installment makes a point of sonically mentioning the embarrassment of riches community of influential musicians (Donald Byrd, Amp Fiddler, J Dilla) who came from Waajeed's neighborhood of Conant Gardens, on Detroit's East Side.
From the Spike Lee cinematic strings at the beginning of "Rouge" to the daring fusion of hip-hop, R&B and house on "The Ballad Of Robert O'Bryant," Waajeed brings together his love for all versions of soul into one concoction. This music is filled with cool resonant moments. It begins in the backyard, then the living room—just for laughing, moving and chopping it up with folk—and progresses to the type of sophisticated bump you want to be immersed in on a proper soundsystem. As things become more percussive—congas reign supreme on the masterful "Keep It Coming"—it's the smallest chord progression that begins swirling at 1:49 that expands an already higher elevation of an arrangement: sax, bass line and colourful chords all vibrating as one, into wider expansions that fill spaces and soothe psyches.
Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz and Theo Parrish's' excellent DJ-Kicks mix, Detroit Forward, are doing the same thing in two different manners. Granted, I'm not the first to suggest this—Piotr Orlov was the first to make the comparison in digital ink, but I heard the same thing. These records complement one another and should be viewed as bookends. Detroit is getting the most beautiful and timely pins.
Tracklist01. Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz
02. Rouge
03. The Ballad Of Robert O'Bryant
04. Motor City Madness
05. Let's Give It Up
06. Snake Eyes
07. The Moment Is Now
08. Right Now
09. Good Trouble
10. Keep It Coming
11. The Dub
12. Remember