youve seen him with maxwell, d'angelo, angie stone, cee-lo, jazz at lincoln center, and branford marsalis. russell gunn invented the genre and now presents the defining album in hip hop/jazz. "krunk jazz"

18 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Jazz Fusion, HIP HOP/RAP: Southern Style



Details:
If one were attempting to design a prototype for the quintessential contemporary musician in the African-American tradition, trumpeter/fluegelhornist/composer Russell Gunn would be an ideal model. A certified member of the hip-hop generation by age (born in 1971) Russell's early aspirations in the world of rap music took precedence over the trumpet that he began playing in fourth grade. When he reached sixteen, his dedication to the art of jazz took shape.

Rather than abandoning the music he loved, he simply applied its energy, spirit and fiercely proud intellectual rage to the jazz idiom, creating a synthesis that is truly contemporary and singular, exemplified by his groundbreaking group, Ethnomusicology.

As the name clearly indicates, Gunn, like most of the finest young musicians to emerge in the past decade, has developed his music from a wide variety of musical influences. In his case, Gunn weaves together elements of Cuban, Brazilian, African, D.C.'s "Go Go" music, and Hip-Hop into an adventurously progressive jazz style that pays tribute to its tradition while also extending the form.