Jazzyster

Funky jazz and a bit of hip hop -- a great little set that mixes up two of the best modes coming from Japan of late -- the live music jamming of the club jazz scene, and some of the spacier hip hop production of the Jazzy Sport/Planet Groove crowd! The core combo here are Blu-Swing -- who serve up some great grooves on keyboards, sax, guitar, bass, and drums -- and rhymes are served up by MC Shade on some tracks, but others feature straighter lyrics from Yu-ri -- a really nice blend that keeps things from getting too stale. The jazzy grooves are great, and feature some especially good acoustic bass at the bottom -- and titles include "Bossanavia", "Midnight Lounge", "Fabulous", "Side Walkaz", "Realize", "Blue Velvet", and "Acoustic Lover" -- plus remixes of "Midnight Lounge" and "Fabulous".