Freestylin'

Amazon.com
If you were digging around for an aural answer to the question "What is acid jazz?" you could probably do worse than Greyboy's Freestylin', a loose-limbed and breezily funky affair that could serve just fine as a blueprint for the entire genre. Released in 1993, Freestylin' predates the success of the Greyboy Allstars and Karl Denson (whose tenor sax is heard here on one track), but it's basically the same recipe. Featuring a mix of sampled drum loops and live musicians, Freestylin' rides one idea all the way through its 10 tracks, but that idea holds enough sway to keep the disc engaging and satisfyingly funkified. Greyboy layers fat hip-hop drum loops underneath Harold Todd's tenor sax and flute and Marc Antoine's guitar on "Ruffneck Jazz" and "Panacea," and then proceeds to do just that for most of the rest of the disc. The highlight, "Who's Gonna Be the Junkie?," boasts Karl Denson on sax, Derek G. on bass, and Gary Wing on drums, and cooks up a '70s blaxploitation soundtrack head of steam, foreshadowing the direction the Greyboy Allstars would later investigate so fruitfully. --Ezra Gale

Tracks:

Ruffneck Jazz
Panacea
Singles Party
La Jolla
On The Strip
Freestylin'
Lite Bake
Texas Twister
Who's Gonna Be The Junkie?
Outerlude

Amazon.com

If you were digging around for an aural answer to the question "What is acid jazz?" you could probably do worse than Greyboy's Freestylin', a loose-limbed and breezily funky affair that could serve just fine as a blueprint for the entire genre. Released in 1993, Freestylin' predates the success of the Greyboy Allstars and Karl Denson (whose tenor sax is heard here on one track), but it's basically the same recipe. Featuring a mix of sampled drum loops and live musicians, Freestylin' rides one idea all the way through its 10 tracks, but that idea holds enough sway to keep the disc engaging and satisfyingly funkified. Greyboy layers fat hip-hop drum loops underneath Harold Todd's tenor sax and flute and Marc Antoine's guitar on "Ruffneck Jazz" and "Panacea," and then proceeds to do just that for most of the rest of the disc. The highlight, "Who's Gonna Be the Junkie?," boasts Karl Denson on sax, Derek G. on bass, and Gary Wing on drums, and cooks up a '70s blaxploitation soundtrack head of steam, foreshadowing the direction the Greyboy Allstars would later investigate so fruitfully. --Ezra Gale

Customer Reviews:

THE ACID JAZZ MASTER SESSION.......2007-06-18

THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST OF EARLY ACID JAZZ RECORDINGS,THIS WAS A SMOKIN SESSION ,I WISHED I WOULD HAVE BEEN THERE TO SEE THESE CATS PLAY ON THIS ONE......BEST OF THE GENRE (MASTERPIECE)

GET THIS CD!.......2007-04-22

True Funk and jazz fans will definitely get into this cd.
Persons who aren't that into jazz will also get into this cd.
The flow and grooves are amazing, and will lift up anybody's spirits.
It's smooth, soulful, funky, sexy, etc, etc, etc! Oh and whoever did the mixing, did a hell of a great job! The 2nd track Panacea is my favorite, but they're all great!
Your head will start bobbing and you foot will start tapping, without you even knowing it!
This cd is for partying, wining and dining, chilling, cleaning your house, car rides, small get togethers, and most importantly it's great to lift ones spirits and make you smile if your feeling a little blue or lacking of energy.
This sh#t is tight!

Hip Hop with Class.......2006-12-23

This album is great! The only track I don't like is the title track, just like with Greyboy's other album Land of the Lost...the title track is easily skipable. I don't know...it must be his style or something to make the title track the lest listened track in my CD player. What makes the title track a flop is the short samples right in the middle of the beat of some sort of activist woman yammering on about freedom; it really breaks up the mood.

This is something that is great to play in the background if your working, driving around, or doing any other activity. It just really sets a cool casual mood. Not to say that this is just background music, but as with all CDs I eventually get bored with them but this one tends to stay in the player due to being great music to just live to. Just let it be the sound track for a day in your life.

I only have listen to Greyboy's Freestylin' and Land of the Lost and I like Freestylin' better only because it has a guitar and being a guitar player myself I just like hearing guitar. Other then that they are equally great and both have only one skipable track.

Let others know how undeniably cool you by buying this album and check out Land of the lost as well.

Landmark Work.......2001-03-15

In the mid - 90s "acid jazz" was the new buzz word in music. Like most categorizing terms acid jazz was more than a little ambiguous. It seemed that any album that could approximate the faintest notions of groove, jazz or 70s retro dance music would be worthy of the title of "acid jazz". And to make matters more confusing "acid jazz" soon evolved via "trip-hop" into a form of house music that unfortunately embodied little groove and even less "jazz". Not being a critic I have the luxury of not having to define this great albeit fleeting form of music. But in my opinion "Freestylin'" combines all the greatest aspects of early/mid 90s "acid jazz". A prolific body of work has been released under the guise of acid jazz but to me this one album could probably stand on it's own as the definition of this genre. This album combines the funkiest, most organic sounding beats with soloists who lend a jazzy feel to the tracks. These two elements, unremarkable in their own right are combined in nearly perfect proportion to produce one of the most groovy, good - feeling albums I have ever heard. This is not an album that simply is an example of that short lived music "acid jazz". "Freestylin" IS acid jazz. And for those of you looking for an introduction to this funky era in recent music, look no further.

Fabulous.......2000-05-13

I revently started to appreciate and listen to a lot of Jazz/Funk (call it what you will, you know what I am talking about) and this was one of the works that really absorbed me. There are some quirky pieces in the middle, but they grow on you. For anyone who shares my new musical interests, I hold this in a similar vein to Lou Donaldson and Medeski Martin & Wood.