PRODUCER, hip-hop artist and jazz buff, Geoff Wilkinson, is on a roll. We've barely said "hello" but as soon as he hears that I'm temporarily located in New York, just three blocks away from the corner that gave his latest album its title, his conversation takes flight. And, during that dizzying journey, he immediately highlights a defining feature in his music - an obsession with jazz greats, such as Charlie Parker. It was Parker's legendary club, Birdland, that once stood at the corner of Broadway and 52nd Street, which is the title of the latest US3 album.
"The real reason I named the album that is not just because of Parker, but because other great jazz musicians used to play at Birdland and it became the jazz corner of the world, for a time," he says.
"But have you gone down to see what it is now? One of these Flash dance places, with women dancing on the table-tops. I went over there and never saw so many naked breasts in one spot, in my life! And it really shocked me to be confronted by that, at one o clock one Friday afternoon.
"I was just standing there and this guy comes up and says, `can I help you?' I gave him what must be one of the dumbest answers ever. I said, `I'm just looking!' But then I got talking to the guy and said, `do you not realise, this used to be Birdland here?' Yet he knew all about that and told me that in terms of the stage, bar and overall structure, the place hadn't changed much."
US 3's debut, Hand on the Torch, produced Top 10 hits such as the wonderful Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) and was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the best extended marriage of jazz and rap to date." Similarly, Vibe suggested that the album was "that rare jazz-rap mix that takes jazz's rhythmic kick to the front of the house." So was Geoff under pressure to make Broadway and 52nd match the earlier album's platinum-selling success?
"The success of the first album took me totally by surprise. Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would sell so well in America, Japan, Canada," he says, modestly alluding to the fact that Hand on the Torch is now Blue Note's bestselling album of all time. "But I didn't allow its success to put pressure on me, though there was pressure from the record company to follow that pattern. Yet, to me, Hand on the Torch is not as perfect an album as people say.
"When I listen to it, all I hear are the mistakes. But then it was put together under a lot of time pressure, really. Because Cantaloop immediately took off in Japan and then there was that pressure to get in there and make an album. And while we were doing the album, we were getting calls from places like Holland, Finland, Greece, where the single had taken off. They wanted an album and that was putting pressure on us."
Yet, to jump back to jazz for a moment, isn't it true that musicians such as Charlie Parker and many of his peers who played at Birdland created their greatest music under pressure, whether that was as a result of improvising with their colleagues on stage, or simply, working to get cash to pay for a fix?
"Yes. The pressures on us then did spur us on and encourage us to get things done. And it did help the music on that album, obviously," Geoff reflects. "But still, to me, Hand on the Torch has too many jagged edges. It's not a rounded album, which is what I wanted the new album to be. What I mean is, the new album is something I feel you could put on and play from beginning to end, whereas the last one had so many different things going on that you'd probably only play two or three tracks at a time, then skip the rest."
IN the time between the new album and the last, Geoff split from his original US3 partner, Mel Simpson. Is this partly what led to what he has described as a period of "soul searching"? "Yes," he says, unhesitatingly. "But there were also changes of personnel in the record company, specifically in terms of the guy who had originally taken us on.
"And, as I said earlier, there was that pressure from the parent company, Capitol Records, not to change a winning formula. Whereas, my intention always had been to change from album to album, in much the same way that, say, Art Blakely and the Jazz"
Messengers would bring in new blood each time they'd make a new record.
"In other words, to me, commercial success was never the ultimate goal. And I wasn't going to give up on that belief just for another successful album. But the ultimate goal, for Mel, was just that. So this led to the split. And, right now, he's probably out there trying to recreate Hand on the Torch. But I want to move forward, even if it means this album might never be as commercially successful as the last."
Move forward is exactly what Geoff Wilkinson does with Broadway and 52nd, paradoxically, by reaching even further back into Blue Note's back catalogue, and deeper into more esoteric jazz than ever before.
"Well, Hand on the Torch was almost a Blue Note Greatest Hits," he says, laughing. "At least, I used a lot of their poppier tunes, things that were really big on the dance scene. This time I wanted to use more obscure artists, though I do use Horace Silver's Sayonara Blues, which I used to play myself when I was a DJ. But what I really want is to take people further into jazz, especially those who are primarily into dance, and mightn't otherwise know where to start."
Caught in A Struggle, with that sample from Sayonara Blues, is also Wilkinson's "tribute to the people of Japan, who gave us our break," he says. Dance culture transworld influences, such as Eastern Horn references, also surface on tracks like Sheep. Likewise in mellow, moody and decidedly non-sexist tracks such as Thinking About Your Body, Snakes and Hymn To Her.
"Well, I have been listening to a lot of (John) Coletrane's Eastern stuff, and Yusef Lateef. And, definitely, there has been quite a heavy Eastern influence in dance music, which I find really interesting. So all of that is what I wanted to tap into on this album," Geoff explains.
Even more than this, on Sheep, Wilkinson combines Eastern sax licks with a rap set in a rhythmic mix that moves along in the highly unusual time signature of 5/4. Rhythmically-restricted rockers, take note. And if that's not innovative enough, in the same song, he pushes 22-year-old New York rapper, Shabaam Sahdeeq, to experiment with "an extension of the poetry and delivery style of the Beatnik era". Geoff also claims he chose rap newcomers Shabeem and KCB because they "had something serious to say."
"And it is their willingness to try something different, tackle serious themes that, again, to me, makes the raps on this album 10 times better than those on the last," he elaborates.
"I really was sensitive to criticism we received, the last time, that the raps weren't as good as the music. I didn't necessarily agree with that, because there were some good lyrics on the last album. Yet it was something I felt I needed to address this time round. So I did spend a lot of time looking for the right guys and I think that KCB and Shabaam have done a fantastic job. Especially the way they were willing to experiment.
"I knew they were both good lyricists, because that's what attracted me to them in the first place, but I never could have predicted that they'd be so ready to experiment. And both have said they wouldn't have considered doing things in different time signatures, or doing poetry, if I hadn't pushed them in that direction.
That, to me, is what music is all about. As we say in one track on the new album, `stay in the game/change direction.' I need change so that I can stay passionate about all this, stay alive."
