someone was saying something about jazz being about improvisation. there's
more to jazz than that. some of the other important elements of jazz are
the approach to melody/harmony and "swing". i'm not saying that all of those
have to be present for something to be considered jazz, but more than one is
usually evident in what i feel comfortable calling jazz.
while i wouldn't be comfortable calling roni's stuff "jazz", there are
certain
elements of jazz in much of what he's doing. some of the timbres and
harmonies are definitely jazzy. many of the bass parts on the reprazent
album
are obviously coming from a jazz influence.
as far as the the tunes being unstructured, i question your definition of
structure--the tunes are *very* structured. the structures are usually quite
basic (was that *really* what your beef was?), but then again, when one's
dancing--and these are intended for a dancefloor--overly complex structures
can be a liability. "brown paper bag" and "new forms" are tunes i think have
structures that break from the dancefloor norm--"new forms" has several
breaks
(which always bugged me actually, even though i like the tune), and "brown
paper bag" has at least 3 different basslines that demarcate the different
sections (for me the "full vocal mix" feat. mc dynamite (?) makes best sense
of these changes).
so roni & crew don't change their breaks up every 2 beats, does that make
them
inferior to photek, etc.? i think not. for most people, photek isn't dance
music--i've always been able to dance to "two sword technique" and "5th
column", but i'm weird--and consequently, not that many djs will play him on
dancefloors. roni on the other hand has remixed tracks by masters at work,
who are reknown for filling dancefloors w/their tracks & remixes. i think
that flytronix are more consistent in quality, but roni does a lot of work,
and i think most of it's good stuff--almost all killer dancefloor material.
if i seem to emphasize dancing too much for you, remember that roni, suv,
die,
& krust are all djs--and probably test their tracks & remixes on the crowd at
full cycle (their club nite), and the guest dj spots they do.
i think i've said enough.
t-bird
p.s. i'm a musician, dj & music producer.
... combi-nation style, l.a.'s new jungle nite 310.236.0141