i know a jazz enthusiast (one in particular) who wouldn’t use a Bob James CD as a coaster, but my hip hop homies would let Nautilus lead of their mix cd. Hey, shit can be good fertilizer too.

Daytona 500 has no relevance to the content in ghostface’s song. i mean we’re talking about ghostface! relevance is often substituted for "fly sounding shit" when it comes to "pretty tony’s" catalog.

I remember Louis Vega’s production from Latifah’s debut "All Hail The Queen." So mtume, your analysis is on point when it comes to the nautilus remix, because Vega was influential in the queen’s "flavor unit" sound in 1989. man i’m gettin’ old.

Mtume says:                                                         

Nadir, you got me on #3, but #5 has to be "Stray Bullet." (Haven’t heard it in a while, but I think that’s the one.) 

This music situation is kind of like how soul food utilizes those leftover parts of the pig. If the rooter and the tooter is all you got access to and you clean it real good, season it well, then cook the shit out of it, then people might eat it. Hell, they might even develop an appetite for it. However, in the long run this devitalized staple will not sustain health.

After years of not selling jazz records the industry became desperate. The factors contributing to jazz fans’ inability to locate their music were several. One of the industry’s responses to this situation was to utilize FM radio as a vehicle to infect, what was considered at that time, the “record buying public” with this hybrid. The genres ‘smooth jazz’ and ‘fusion’ were created to sell a specific product to a specific demographic. Now I’m not saying the music industry creating smooth jazz or fusion is a comparison to putting lipstick on a pig. It’s like a musical organ donor program or perhaps more like applying Soylent Green technology in order to control the population’s consumption of pop music and thereby, controlling the population. Long ago George Clinton said that America eats it young.

I tend to look for innovation and true innovators will always emerge in most any situation. There is a big difference between Bob James’ Nautilus and trendsetters like Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters. One recording was thrown under the ‘classic’ banner because the gods took dormant organisms, extracted strands of relevant DNA and recreated life. Otherwise, this is just some dead shit that could not survive in the wild on its own. The other is a classic whose music, in its original state, will forever stand on its own and stand the test of time. I know this brother who doesn’t even hear Bob James when he listens to this music or any of them other joints that appropriated bits and pieces from Nautilus. He be like, "Bob who? Oh snap!" This Nautilus situation speaks to the resourcefulness of the producers and dj’s of rap music. Anyone who can make a delicacy out of pig’s intestines has got to be a genius. There is the familiarity of the beat with just a sample of the melody; it is almost subliminal. While feasting on chitterlings the subconscious palate may become intrigued after tasting the faint essence of corn once digested by the dearly departed pig. I understand that there are certain components to a well-balanced diet but if all that you have access to are pig scraps then you may want to try and find a meal that doesn’t consist of second-hand protein. (Check Aceyalone’s use of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman on the track Book of Human Language.)

Bob James might be a great hip hop trivia question. But the Nautilus recording itself is not a classic.

AumRa

Mtume says:                                                        

 
AumRa, let me say that your entire response, particularly the last paragraph, is itself a classic. That said, before we go any further, let us define the word ‘classic,’ thereby (hopefully) advancing this conversation past the stumbling block of semantics:

There are three major definitions of the word ‘classic’ (as it is being used in this conversation):

    1. Belonging to the highest rank or class.

    2. Serving as the established model or standard; a classic example of colonial architecture.

    3. Having lasting significance or worth; enduring.

AumRa and Kalamu appear to be using definition #1 almost exclusively, with a bit of definition #2 thrown in here and there. I believe all three definitions are valid, including the last, and it is under the last definition that "Nautilus" falls. (And one might make a good argument for definition #2. E.g., "Nautilus" is a classic breakbeat. Hard to argue that it isn’t, given that it’s still being sampled / covered / collected today, some 30-plus years after Bob James initially recorded it.)

Second (although I’m sure this will do nothing to appease the righteous indignation of jazzheads Kalamu, AumRa, et al), lightning in fact struck twice: Bob James’ version of Paul Simon’s "Take Me To The Mardi Gras" is another of hip-hop’s most-sampled records, the most notable example being Run-DMC’s "Peter Piper."

Third (and I can’t believe I’m putting myself in the unenviable and tenuous position of defending Bob James), even without either "Nautilus" or "Take Me To The Mardi Gras," Bob James would/should be considered a significant contributer to Black music via his participation in recordings by artists such as Ron Carter, Sarah Vaughan, Quincy Jones, Stanley Turrentine, Deodato, Hubert Laws, and (a personal favorite) Idris Muhammad on Idris’ 1974 album Power Of Soul.

Fourth, the spite and vitriol leveled at Mr. James is indicative of feelings that run far deeper and wider than anything James may or may not have done. If jazzheads are angry at what the system has done to jazz (as I am angry about what the system has done to hip-hop), said jazzheads should feel free to rant and scream and cry on the floor like babies, but, as they do so, they should remain cognizant of their own prejudices, biases and predispositions. Remember: Kalamu wrote his first response to my "Nautilus" post before he even listened to the record. Is it possible for a hardcore jazzhead to listen without prejudice to Bob James? Just wondering.

Finally, in closing, allow me to quote literature critic John O’Brien, from his essay, "Milan Kundera: Meaning, Play, and the Role of the Author." Mr. O’Brien writes: “Always there is an inherent contradiction in these kinds of critical analyses that take pages upon pages to argue that a novel does not mean anything.”

AumRa: “music”

Kalamu: “Black!”

AumRa: “music”

Kalamu: “Black!”

AumRa: “Nah when I say Bob James, you say whack”

AumRa: “Bob James”

Kalamu: “Whack!”

AumRa: “Bob James”

Kalamu: “Whack!”

AumRa: “Bob James Bob James Bob James Bob James”

Kalamu: “Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!”

AumRa & Kalamu: “Nah somebody… scream!”

Mtume: “AAAHHHhhhh!”

Damn, my bad Mtume. I didn’t mean to get you all riled and the bold print; nice touch. But man, be honest. Your thing is based mainly on romanticizing the past about how it was when you first heard that 12 note break beat than it is about Bob James’ alleged significance. And, I ain’t gon even lie, if I hear that shit right now I might even bounce to it provided it was in the context of some break beat. However when placed in the broader context of Black music Bob James is a gnat on the ass of a cow when you are in a car rolling down the highway at 70 mph. (thanks Danny Glover). This ain’t the image awards. I can say what I wanna. That’s the beauty of music; it subjective.

For the record, I never said that Bob James was not a contributor to Black music but since you brought it up we can document me rat nah, “Bob James is definitely not a significant contributor to Black music.” Damn, I thought I implied that when I said, don’t make pork a significant part of your diet. You know how many good musicians, Black, European, Asian, hell I even know a dead space alien from Saturn, who’d be way up there before ‘let’s make a buck Bob’ could crack this list? I don’t know that I would use terms prejudice, bias and predisposition (not really sure of the meaning of the last word since I’m not inclined to use dollar words in .50 cent conversations). I guess I would prefer less provocative terms, simple ones such as likes and dislike.

I like Nautilus samples in the context of rap music and dislike Bob James music otherwise. Lightning could even strike a third time and Bob James still would be just as obscure as when you scrolled all the way down to that third definition of the word classic. If you got to reach that far, then cool. Way to go, Bob! I can’t believe you brought up Paul Simon. His career was garbage until he traveled back across the Atlantic and ‘discovered’ Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Finally, Eumir Deodato is not Black; he’s just non-white. But hey, if you want, we can try to pick him up in the next draft – provided that Joe Zawinul is not still on the board.

AumRa

          Kalamu says        

i know it’s hard, aumra, but the fact of the matter is you’re talking jazz, mtume is talking hip hop.

mtume, to be clear, i wasn’t writing a review of "nautilus" without hearing it—indeed i heard it when it first came out, i just didn’t "listen" to it nor take it seriously (and still don’t, for that matter). however, your insights with regards to how the record was used in the world of hip hop were right on so i listened to you and then went back to try to listen to nautilus in that context—and still couldn’t "listen" all the way through.

as a jazz record, it ain’t squat. as a hip hop source record, it is a classic. simple as that.

and one more thing. once we open our eyes and ears to the spectrum of our music, we see that this is not a new pattern. sure we didn’t have sampling and such, forty or fifty years ago, but what we did have is billie holiday being presented with the dregs of then popular music and she turning that stuff inside-out to weave a resplendent sonic quilt. indeed, aumra, as you well know, a major part of the history of jazz is black musicians taking lame-ass tunes and turning them into hip numbers. who would ever want to travel down green dolphins street were it not for miles’ midnight amble?

i’m saying: taking whatever america leaves and making it much more than what we received, is one of the chief characteristics of black music in general and jazz in particular. and don’t get me started on the song that was written by a slave ship captain thanking god for sparing his ship in a storm, i.e. "amazing grace." and by the way aumra, i know you dig zawinul’s version of duke’s "come sunday" that zawinul did while he was with cannonball, mercy, mercy, mercy!

blackness for me is about color, culture and consciousness, with the color (or biological element) being the least important of the three. just like blacks, such as leontine price, singing opera don’t make that music any less a european artform, whites, such as bob james (playing ability aside) composing and recording nautilus don’t make jazz any less a black artform, nor does elvis redux, aka, eminem, mean that rap is any less… but yall understand.

to respect another person’s point a view, even if they totally disagree with you, in no way diminishes your own point of view, indeed, when you can see it your way and another way, you see a lot more than…

ok, i wasn’t going to go all the way there, but check this out yall: all three of the featured cuts deal with amalgamation—sociologically speaking, "racial purity" is a myth. nautilus is a bedrock of rap. bowmboi used a classical string quartet as the sole instrumentation. and paula lima, with her bad self, is singing a glenn miller chestnut. is that white/black/mulatto enough for you? 

Great site by the way I’m glad i found it.

I speak spanish so it’s hard for me to explain it fluently. Anyway, I think that the way DJ Premier flipped the drums of “Nautilus” in my favorite “Nautilus” sampled track, Group Home’s “Inna Citi Life”, is a good example. It would be easy to do the same drum programming with a beat box, but what is really great in that track is the manipulation of the original atmosphere of the recording.

King Sun’s “Big Shots” is my other personal fav too.

What a great discussion here. Peace.