I would love it if Prince put out more instrumental albums, like these............

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And then tour it, with not a "hit" played.

[Edited 8/22/10 14:24pm]

[Edited 9/5/10 9:11am]

[Edited 9/5/10 9:13am]

yes to the tour, but to be honest when compared to other jazz works they don't stand up. news is interesting, but the madhouse albums are pretty over rated really. the npg version of 24 is the best of them, but wasn't released

i'd like to hear more stuff like the war, and tour with that. progressive stuff. stuff the hits, i've heard them enough times

unique said:

yes to the tour, but to be honest when compared to other jazz works they don't stand up. news is interesting, but the madhouse albums are pretty over rated really. the npg version of 24 is the best of them, but wasn't released

i'd like to hear more stuff like the war, and tour with that. progressive stuff. stuff the hits, i've heard them enough times

I love the '88 version of 24, not so keen on the NPG version, it is such a shame it was not released.

To be honest, C-Note and Expectation are pretty weak too, but i still prefer them to a lot of Prince albums proper.

Why? Look at how much material all that entails. Plus after the Madhouse set, it's just garbage. Never was such a boring period as that early 00's period where he was dishing out that rubbish. I partially blame it on Reneto Nato's (sp) presence. Prince claims to be this funky man, and then he plays this horrid shit that even the most desperate steak house would reject as piped in music.

For me - no thanks.

My dream Prince gig.

This is a description taken from "The Vault."

6 July 2001

Prince performs at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. He topped the bill at the week long event, headlining the final night. Much to the surprise of Prince fans who attended, Prince performed a mostly instrumental jazz flavoured set.

The set opened with a lenghthy drum solo by John Blackwell, after a few minutes he was joined by Najee on flute. Prince then appeared on stage strolling to Kip Blackshire's keyboards, facing away from the audience Prince then added a touch of vocoder as he began to improvise. This long intro lead into The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker and then the Madhouse track Four, the latter became another long instrumental jam with Prince playing keyboards. After 30 or so minutes at the keyboard, Prince picked up his guitar and played a solo before being joined on stage by Larry Graham to play Eyemagettin' from GCS2000. Then prince returned to the keyboard for a fascinating number which saw him sampling himself to create loops in which to play over. He then switched back to guitar and began jamming with Mike Scott and Graham. At one point he motioned for Scott to solo, then Prince joined him in a double guitar solo. Next was a blues version of Girls & Boys, in which Najee soloed. Prince then switched to bass for another Madhouse track, (unknown) they then continued with an instrumental version of Talkin' Loud & Sayin' Nothing. Prince applauded the audience and the band as the jam began to end, he then sat at the keyboard and closed the first set with Forever In My Life, an unknown song and Joni Mitchells A Case Of U.

After this first set Prince and the band received a long standing ovation. Prince's 80 minute jazz set took many by surprise, few had expected him to perform such a daring set, the audience never knew what was going to happen next. Prince appeared very relaxed on stage, often walking around and watching band members solo. He did not dance and was dressed more low key than usual, emphasizing that this was more about the music.

ernestsewell said:

Why? Look at how much material all that entails. Plus after the Madhouse set, it's just garbage. Never was such a boring period as that early 00's period where he was dishing out that rubbish. I partially blame it on Reneto Nato's (sp) presence. Prince claims to be this funky man, and then he plays this horrid shit that even the most desperate steak house would reject as piped in music.

For me - no thanks.

Great description, steak house music.

MikeyB71 said:

^ Yes, it was an actual gig.

MikeyB71 said:

^ Yes, it was an actual gig.

I attended this show. It was awesome. It was also my 1st Prince show...I remember that the day after the show Prince's crew posted on the NPGMC website that the show would be made available to the members of the club. It never happened...

The sound quality of the show which is circulating is just horrible. What a shame.

I'd be quite happy to see some more instrumental and/or jazzy releases.

Dear god PLEASE NO.

PLEASE, no more fucking jazz, no more fucking jazz funk, and no more long extended jazz funk jams at concerts. For the love of Jehovah, please stop doing this crap.

Spinlight said:

Dear god PLEASE NO.

PLEASE, no more fucking jazz, no more fucking jazz funk, and no more long extended jazz funk jams at concerts. For the love of Jehovah, please stop doing this crap.

N.E.W.S, C-Note and all that, i can forgive you for not liking, but not even the faint glimmer of the prospect of doing something as good as the Madhouse albums? Not that he ever will.

[Edited 8/22/10 16:18pm]

MikeyB71 said:

Spinlight said:

Dear god PLEASE NO.

PLEASE, no more fucking jazz, no more fucking jazz funk, and no more long extended jazz funk jams at concerts. For the love of Jehovah, please stop doing this crap.

N.E.W.S, C-Note and all that, i can forgive you for not liking, but not even the faint glimmer of the prospect of doing something as good as the Madhouse albums? Not that he ever will.

[Edited 8/22/10 16:18pm]

I like 8, 16, and the original 24. The re-worked 24 is NOT BAD (as in, I like a couple of the songs and don't mind the rest), but I cannot condone Prince putting out more fucking jazz music, lol. I just can't. He's infused so much of his live shows in the past 10 years with jazz and I simply don't feel he is very good at it. Is that apocryphal? I dunno. I feel guilty saying it, but I just think he is better at funk and rock and not so great at Jazz. Not to mention, Maceo is the only horn player he has had in the past 10 years that I enjoyed listening to. Najee put me to S L E E P, haha.

Spinlight said:

MikeyB71 said:

N.E.W.S, C-Note and all that, i can forgive you for not liking, but not even the faint glimmer of the prospect of doing something as good as the Madhouse albums? Not that he ever will.

[Edited 8/22/10 16:18pm]

I like 8, 16, and the original 24. The re-worked 24 is NOT BAD (as in, I like a couple of the songs and don't mind the rest), but I cannot condone Prince putting out more fucking jazz music, lol. I just can't. He's infused so much of his live shows in the past 10 years with jazz and I simply don't feel he is very good at it. Is that apocryphal? I dunno. I feel guilty saying it, but I just think he is better at funk and rock and not so great at Jazz. Not to mention, Maceo is the only horn player he has had in the past 10 years that I enjoyed listening to. Najee put me to S L E E P, haha.

I am no jazz expert, far from it, so the fact of these albums being genuine/real jazz or not is beyond me, i could not really comment on whether he is good at it or not. All i know is i like what i hear and i would like to hear more, but i fully respect your comments.

I couldn't agree more, i want more jazz material.

As for weither these albums are jazz in the traditionnal sense of the term, well, they're fusion. What's jazz and what's not is a long and neverending debate dating back to the 60's if not earlier. My 70 years-old father is a jazz fan and 2 him, Bitches Brew or the whole Alice Coltrane discography isn't jazz.

MikeyB71 said:

Spinlight said:

I like 8, 16, and the original 24. The re-worked 24 is NOT BAD (as in, I like a couple of the songs and don't mind the rest), but I cannot condone Prince putting out more fucking jazz music, lol. I just can't. He's infused so much of his live shows in the past 10 years with jazz and I simply don't feel he is very good at it. Is that apocryphal? I dunno. I feel guilty saying it, but I just think he is better at funk and rock and not so great at Jazz. Not to mention, Maceo is the only horn player he has had in the past 10 years that I enjoyed listening to. Najee put me to S L E E P, haha.

I am no jazz expert, far from it, so the fact of these albums being genuine/real jazz or not is beyond me, i could not really comment on whether he is good at it or not. All i know is i like what i hear and i would like to hear more, but i fully respect your comments.

that's the thing, if you know jazz and some of the classics, the prince albums don't stand up so well. the madhouse 8 album is clearly inspired by miles davis 80s album tutu, which was a winebar classic along the lines of the portishead album or play by moby etc. the tutu album was different for miles as it had programmed drum machine beats by marcus miller who did most of the other instruments, it's just that prince doesn't quite pull it off as well. six is a great tune, but the rest are over rated. i sometimes wonder if fans sometimes say they like it to try and make out like they know about or appreciate jazz and non pop/rock/funk music. the original 24 album was more of the same

the second 24 album was more of a jazz funk album, with a more 70s feel, perhaps a little like the crusaders. it was almost an instrumental funk album. having a couple of previously known tracks helped too

he then did his ballet album, after a brief play with the genre on the extended version of thunder for the joffrey ballet, and as you've expect from a rock/pop star who'd never done that style of music before, it wasn't very good. the tunes/themes weren't strong and as most of the instrumentation was keyboard based it didn't help. william orbit pulled off the electronica classical style with pieces in a modern style, and loads like wendy carlos had tried it for decades before but weren't considered much more than a novelty. fortunately kamasutra was bundled with an excellent accoustic guitar album and 3 discs feature 2 full cds worth of mostly music we already had, but in better quality, even if the tracks were edited down

NEWS was another direction in jazz for prince, more inspired by bitches brew, weather report and mahavishnu orchestra. four progressive jazz peices, guitar that was reminiscent of miles distorted horn sound. this was a pretty good release. as someone else pointed out however, some people don't consider that style to be true jazz, such as some of the jazz purists. if that's the case then i'd say tutu wasn't jazz, and thus madhouse 8, 16 and the first version of 24 isn't either. to me it doesn't matter what you call it, music is music, you either like it or not. personally i prefer miles electric period such as bitches brew and in a silent way, and on the corner was his worst selling album at the time, but one of his most interesting. it seems prince was trying to emulate that progressive style, and he came close, but no cigar

the xenophobia session that became xpectations was another failed attempt to make a progressive jazz album, which is probably why it only had a free internet release. vanessa mae was brought on board to add the violins that were present on bitches brew and in the weather report and mahavishnu orchestra sound, but the end result was music perfectly suited to elevators. unexciting music. full marks for trying though. it's a shame the original lead track was removed as it was one of the strongest tracks

i don't really consider cnote to be an album, the tracks were originally just instrumental jazz jams played at soundchecks, one of which contrains jean pierre by miles davis. you only have 4 jazz tracks as empty room certainly isn't jazz, although it's the best track on the EP. the tracks were originally sent to NPGMC members at the time, but just 1 track sent to each member, with the track being from a soundcheck from the area where the member was registered. it was only afterwards when they deceded to bundle the tracks together to sell that it became that EP. the CNOTE was to represent the $100 that fans paid to join the club for 4 expected albums that never appeared

to me, what miles did, and stuff like alice contrane, is some of the best music ever made. at least some of it may not be what jazz purists appreciate, but who cares. i'd rather listen to pharoa saunders than bop

^ I have Tutu, Bitches Brew blah blah blah, among others. And i think they are shit, i really enjoy Bitches Brew, but i much prefer the sounds that were made by the likes of Sun-Ra, which for the most part is crazy "free" jazz stuff, it may sound a shambles to most people but it sounds good to me, same with some of Colemans albums.

All in all jazz is a total mystery to me, i find most of it unlistenable, which you may find strange considering i enjoy the likes of Sun-Ra.

Like i said before i am no expert, i have maybe 15 "jazz" albums (not including the Prince stuff).

Call Prince's instrumental music jazz or fusion, whatever. I have no idea if it is jazz or not, and i don't really care. I know that i like it, and i find it a whole lot more interesting and challenging to listen to than the tracks on 20TEN and most of his output in the last few years.

Prince can't play jazz. He just did some 'jazzy' records.

I would like to have some more instead of the stupid funk/pop that's been releasing since 2004.

I would appreciate more Funk/Jazz & Rock sound from Prince.

I thought Lotusflow3r was a great push in that direction and I would love to hear the unreleased 2008-album with the 'Turn me Loose' sound. I think this album could have been awesome.

The 2009 Montreux/Monaca shows were also great in my opinion. Nice band, cool less known songs being played. I only regret he plays two short concerts on one evening instead of a more experimental longer show ( + aftershow). A lot of crazy songs could have been played if he'd toured with this in small venues.

MikeyB71 said:

^ I have Tutu, Bitches Brew blah blah blah, among others. And i think they are shit, i really enjoy Bitches Brew, but i much prefer the sounds that were made by the likes of Sun-Ra, which for the most part is crazy "free" jazz stuff, it may sound a shambles to most people but it sounds good to me, same with some of Colemans albums.

All in all jazz is a total mystery to me, i find most of it unlistenable, which you may find strange considering i enjoy the likes of Sun-Ra.

Like i said before i am no expert, i have maybe 15 "jazz" albums (not including the Prince stuff).

Call Prince's instrumental music jazz or fusion, whatever. I have no idea if it is jazz or not, and i don't really care. I know that i like it, and i find it a whole lot more interesting and challenging to listen to than the tracks on 20TEN and most of his output in the last few years.

i worked in a record store that had a pretty big jazz section and a couple of the other guys in the store were into jazz. at first when they put on some album that was an outstanding jazz classic i would be like wtf is that. the drums are all over the place, there's no words and i can't follow the tune. my ears were bleeding

it took me a while to get into and figure out. i studied music and have formal qualifications in the subject, and that's not for playing instruments, but the actual study of music itself. i came to the conclusion that most people these days at least are too used to listening to music with a 4:4 signature. some people may be reasonably open in the types of music they listen to, but whether it's rock, pop, house, funk, metal or hip hop, all those genres follow the same time signatures, so you know that a track is going to follow a particular patter, whether you realise it or not, you subconsciously know how the track is going to follow on

with jazz, different time signatures are often used, and these can confuse the hell out of the listener if they are used to 4:4 all the time. their brain is expecting one thing and hearing another, so they can't comprehend what they are hearing so they think it sounds like crap. with some of the later more progressive miles stuff he stuck to 4:4 or similar time signatures, likewise most of the jazzfunk or fusion genres, so the musical style was different in that jazz musicians were almost playing like a rock or funk band, so whilst some of it might sound unlistenable or hell to jazz purists, the music becomes more familiar and more accessible to rock/funk fans, so the rock/jazz fusion wasn't just a fusion of styles in the instrument sense, but regards to the time signatures too

so that's perhaps why you might enjoy bitches brew and later material like tutu (which is a very accessible commercial sounding album, or was at the time), but not some of the earlier stuff or stuff considered more traditional jazz (not trad jazz as in dixieland)

some of the 70s herbie hancock albums are pretty accessible jazz funk extravaganzas like headhunters and thrust, or spectrum by billy cobham (with the original version of stratus that prince covers - which is the bassline nicked by massive attack in safe from harm)

some of the alice coltrane and pharoa saunders stuff is pretty far out stuff. if you maybe like early pink floyd and zappa (who has a fair amount of jazz influences in his work), you might find it interesting. it's great chilllout music. you just need to be careful as some of the stuff is really hard going, there's a john coltrane album with just him on sax and a japanese guy on percussion with two tracks, one is about 35 minutes long. it sounds like a drum kit fell down the stairs whilst john coltrane is getting the saxaphone stuffed down his throat and out the other end

^ Uni, your various descriptions are usually spot on and always give me a laugh too.

Interesting you should mention Herbie Hancock, i have a handful of his albums, including Headhunters, which i love. I agree some of it is accessible, i love the albums where he is combining electronics, keyboards, drum machines, scratches and the like. Albums which i suspect would horrify jazz puirists. In fact, those 80's Herbie Hancock albums are similar in a way to the kind of sounds that Madhouse came out with. More the rock/funk /fusion you were talking about.

Call me purist if you will, but I'm especially fond of be-bop and hard-bop.

I can even dig cool or modal.

IMHO from In a silent way / Bitches Brew onwards Miles stepped out of the realms of jazz.

Call it 'improvisation-based music' or whatever but that isn't real jazz for me, which doesn't mean it's not good music.

As talented as he is, Prince could never play what I call 'real jazz'.

MikeyB71 said:

^ Uni, your various descriptions are usually spot on and always give me a laugh too.

Interesting you should mention Herbie Hancock, i have a handful of his albums, including Headhunters, which i love. I agree some of it is accessible, i love the albums where he is combining electronics, keyboards, drum machines, scratches and the like. Albums which i suspect would horrify jazz puirists. In fact, those 80's Herbie Hancock albums are similar in a way to the kind of sounds that Madhouse came out with. More the rock/funk /fusion you were talking about.

the 70s herbie albums were the best, i wasn't so keen on the 80s ones like futureshock. the death wish soundtrack is actually one of my most listened to herbie albums, it's very different to the rest of his stuff, it's a bit like the taxi driver soundtrack by bernard herman (the last album he recorded before he died), very downboat, great chillout stuff

vitriol said:

Call me purist if you will, but I'm especially fond of be-bop and hard-bop.

I can even dig cool or modal.

IMHO from In a silent way / Bitches Brew onwards Miles stepped out of the realms of jazz.

Call it 'improvisation-based music' or whatever but that isn't real jazz for me, which doesn't mean it's not good music.

As talented as he is, Prince could never play what I call 'real jazz'.

for miles it was all about new directions in music. the started off with bop, then onto the cool and modal and then onto fusion. towards the end he was even making rap records. in fact doo bop was originally planned as a double album, with the rap stuff on one record and the second record was a to be a prince collab, but when i got can i play with u, it just didn't fit in and the idea was scrapped

fusion such as bitches brew/weather report is my favourite stuff, but of course in a silent way is just a stupendously fantastic album, it is THE original chillout album, moreso than any floyd album. the jack johnson album also has some great chillout stuff

there's just a huge amount of diversity in miles work. i have every one of his studio albums, and i have most of the box sets too, i just don't have all the live ones as they get a bit expensive. in fact i have multiple copies of some of his albums, with the original cbs/sony cds then the remasters and box sets, i have a bit of unreleased stuff like boots of other sessions that weren't included in the box sets, in cd releasable quality too

ernestsewell said:

Why? Look at how much material all that entails. Plus after the Madhouse set, it's just garbage. Never was such a boring period as that early 00's period where he was dishing out that rubbish. I partially blame it on Reneto Nato's (sp) presence. Prince claims to be this funky man, and then he plays this horrid shit that even the most desperate steak house would reject as piped in music.

For me - no thanks.

It may have not been your taste ernest but, I on the other hand love when P does Jazz or I should say experimental Jazz. Let's keep with the point of view that he may not have that strong of a Jazz backround but his father and mother used to compose and perform Jazz so, he has that foundation.

It's just not your taste, I wouldn't call it garbage.

MikeyB71 said:

My dream Prince gig.

This is a description taken from "The Vault."

6 July 2001

Prince performs at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. He topped the bill at the week long event, headlining the final night. Much to the surprise of Prince fans who attended, Prince performed a mostly instrumental jazz flavoured set.

The set opened with a lenghthy drum solo by John Blackwell, after a few minutes he was joined by Najee on flute. Prince then appeared on stage strolling to Kip Blackshire's keyboards, facing away from the audience Prince then added a touch of vocoder as he began to improvise. This long intro lead into The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker and then the Madhouse track Four, the latter became another long instrumental jam with Prince playing keyboards. After 30 or so minutes at the keyboard, Prince picked up his guitar and played a solo before being joined on stage by Larry Graham to play Eyemagettin' from GCS2000. Then prince returned to the keyboard for a fascinating number which saw him sampling himself to create loops in which to play over. He then switched back to guitar and began jamming with Mike Scott and Graham. At one point he motioned for Scott to solo, then Prince joined him in a double guitar solo. Next was a blues version of Girls & Boys, in which Najee soloed. Prince then switched to bass for another Madhouse track, (unknown) they then continued with an instrumental version of Talkin' Loud & Sayin' Nothing. Prince applauded the audience and the band as the jam began to end, he then sat at the keyboard and closed the first set with Forever In My Life, an unknown song and Joni Mitchells A Case Of U.

After this first set Prince and the band received a long standing ovation. Prince's 80 minute jazz set took many by surprise, few had expected him to perform such a daring set, the audience never knew what was going to happen next. Prince appeared very relaxed on stage, often walking around and watching band members solo. He did not dance and was dressed more low key than usual, emphasizing that this was more about the music.

Jeez!!! I wanna hear this! Is this gig circulating (a quick search online was unsuccessful).

databank said:

MikeyB71 said:

My dream Prince gig.

This is a description taken from "The Vault."

6 July 2001

Prince performs at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. He topped the bill at the week long event, headlining the final night. Much to the surprise of Prince fans who attended, Prince performed a mostly instrumental jazz flavoured set.

The set opened with a lenghthy drum solo by John Blackwell, after a few minutes he was joined by Najee on flute. Prince then appeared on stage strolling to Kip Blackshire's keyboards, facing away from the audience Prince then added a touch of vocoder as he began to improvise. This long intro lead into The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker and then the Madhouse track Four, the latter became another long instrumental jam with Prince playing keyboards. After 30 or so minutes at the keyboard, Prince picked up his guitar and played a solo before being joined on stage by Larry Graham to play Eyemagettin' from GCS2000. Then prince returned to the keyboard for a fascinating number which saw him sampling himself to create loops in which to play over. He then switched back to guitar and began jamming with Mike Scott and Graham. At one point he motioned for Scott to solo, then Prince joined him in a double guitar solo. Next was a blues version of Girls & Boys, in which Najee soloed. Prince then switched to bass for another Madhouse track, (unknown) they then continued with an instrumental version of Talkin' Loud & Sayin' Nothing. Prince applauded the audience and the band as the jam began to end, he then sat at the keyboard and closed the first set with Forever In My Life, an unknown song and Joni Mitchells A Case Of U.

After this first set Prince and the band received a long standing ovation. Prince's 80 minute jazz set took many by surprise, few had expected him to perform such a daring set, the audience never knew what was going to happen next. Prince appeared very relaxed on stage, often walking around and watching band members solo. He did not dance and was dressed more low key than usual, emphasizing that this was more about the music.

Jeez!!! I wanna hear this! Is this gig circulating (a quick search online was unsuccessful).

I would love to hear this too, but i cannot seem to track it down.

Also fellow orger camilleisfunky said this in his post..

"I attended this show. It was awesome. It was also my 1st Prince show...I remember that the day after the show Prince's crew posted on the NPGMC website that the show would be made available to the members of the club. It never happened...

The sound quality of the show which is circulating is just horrible."

[Edited 8/23/10 14:14pm]

If I want to hear jazz, I would rather listen to Ron Burgandy on "yazz" flute. Prince needs to do what he does best, and all that jazz was not his best.

I can understand recording it and having it "available" for people to obtain, but to tour on that alone? Not for me, thanks. I would feel like I'm stuck in an elevator that is not moving fast enough.

Go back, listen to 17 Days and She's Always in my Hair over and over... then get the guitar, piano and drums together and write something funky as hell... no blues jazz fusion! The guys in Spinal Tap tried that, remember? It didn't work... lol

Spinlight said:

I can hardly agree to Xpectation being called "elevator music". I saw David Sanborn live last year and this was elevator music. Kenny G records are elevator music. Xpectation, weither one like it or not, was a bit more ambitious than that.

I listen to a lot of jazz even though i wouldn't call myself a specialist. I also listen to a lot of experimental avant-garde jazz and other musical weird stuff such as the numerous instrumental projects Bill Laswell and his New-York friends have been associated with, as well as a lot of contemporary composers and ambient music, and as far as i'm concerned, several of Prince's instrumental albums are amongst his strongest material.

I'd love to hear the Flesh sessions and hopefully they'll see the light of day at some point. Until this, i'm totally astonished by the Owen Husney 1977 sessions. Pr'ince's improvisational skills on keyboards are amazing for a 20 years-old kid, and André & Bobby show musical skills they never were able to use later, while playing in the new-wave/funk Revolution.

8 is absolutely magical to me. I don't know why, i just love the particular atmosphere this record has. It may not be a revolution but i see absolutely no cmparison with Miles' material in the 80's, or even Herbie's. While these desesperatly tried to sound contemporary (and miserably failed IMO: their 80's albums globally sound so dated and cheap today compared to other electrofunk & synthpop classics. I mean i WORSHIP Scritti Politti, but Miles playing Perfect Way... pleaaaase!!!), Prince didn't try to sound anything but himself with a more jazzy feeling. 8 just doesn't sound 1986 at all, and in that sense, Prince made a better record than most of his elders trying to sound 80's at the same time. So you can call it jazz, funk or whatsoever but in the end it sounds great for a 1987 jazz-fusion record, much more organic, less mechanical andPrince was clever to let drum-machines out of it and minimize the synth aspects.

16 is the shit IMO. It sounds so rough, so organic, so wild, so agressive!!! It's more funk than jazz but in the end it's not even funk, it's just hysterical repetitive music with a killer groove, almost techno music. It was completely ahead of its time and i still consider it a MAJOR Prince album to this day. Prince just went crazy on this one, and when Prince goes crazy, it really sounds great. I never could find any record that sounds like this one and you're talking to a guy who has more than 2.000 records at home. Toshinori Kondo recorded material that was close to this earlier in the 80's, but once again it sounded very "eighties" with lots of synth and drum-machines, while Prince was clever enough to keep 16 more organic.

24 (1988) starts a bit like 16 with a more electronic, Batman-like feel, which makes it even weirder than its predecessor, but the fact that 5 tracks outta 8 are smooth tracks ruins it IMO, because it makes it a bit elevator music even though i appreciate these tracks' inner darkness.

Times Squared (a record that everyone always forget to mention, but it's a Prince record: Eric Leeds just finished the job by polishing Prince tracks) is actually too... polished. I really enjoy it but Eric made it sound too much like elevator jazz IMO, wasting most of the wilderness Prince puts into his music (Eric's second album goes even farther in the elevator direction). Of all of Prince's "jazz" records, this one is the most likely to be hated by real jazz listeners.

24 (1993) is definitely more funk than jazz, even though it countains some very interesting (i.e. more sophisticated) efforts such as 17, Asswoopin' In A Trunk and Rootie Kazootie. However, a few other tracks (mostly Space and Parlor Games) are really corny and sound too much like some Kenny G. elevator jazz to be taken seriously.

24 (1995) we know almost nothing of, but the 2 tracks we partially have suggest that it goes another step into more sophistication and i'd love to hear it.

Kamasutra is not jazz, but wants to be somewhere between contemporary music and ambient music. I enjoyed it a lot when i first got it back in '98, and then i discovered the likes of Bill Laswell, Haruomi Hosono, Tetsu Inoue and other ambient composers on one hand, and the likes of Steve Reich, Harold Budd, Philip Glass, Gavin Bryars and other contemporary composers on the other hand, and i realized how clumsy Kamasutra is. This time the blame clearly goes on a MAJOR lack of cultural references from Prince's part: obviously, Prince has only been exposed to American popular musi (soul, funk, jazz, rock & pop) and old classical music, and he tried to emulate the later with synthesizers which could only end-up as being a disaster when compared to contemporary composers. It has some beautiful melodies (such as the main theme) and a few interesting experiments (such as Cutz), but it cannot be taken seriously when compared to other ambient/contemporary music from the 90's and before.

Xpectation is a great album. The music really is sophisticated and it sounds quite rough and wild even though it's not (and doesn't try to be) Bitches' Brew or an Alice Coltrane album. I really think that Prince surpassed himself with this one, and his band is tight and very talented. Once again it's not a major album in regards of the 70 years of jazz history that precessed it, but from the perspective of Prince's career it's really impressive. Obviously Prince chose to release it online because he knew that his audience wouldn't follow (neither 8, 16, Times Squared or N.E.W.S. sold well) but if you put in in perspective and compare it to Musicology, 3121 or Planet Earth to name a few, where Prince just does what he knows how to do, it's really a daring album. Another interesting aspect is that Prince takes Rhonda and Candy way beyond the limits of what they do in their own solo careers.

C-Note IS an album, but i don't think Prince himself takes it very seriously: it lacks cohesiveness (what the hell is Empty Room doing here?), it's very short (30 mn) and ends-up with 15 minutes of slow jams which can be perceived as boring. In no case can it be considered jazz in the pure sense of the term, but it's pleasant funk-jams. Neverthless, it should be respected because it really was a gift to fans: had this material surfaced on bootlegs only, we'd be raving about it, so Prince just wanted to give us a glimpse of him jamming with his band and i'm grateful that he did. And Copenhagen really is a killer jam IMO!

And, last but not least, we have N.E.W.S., and i'll never say enough how much i love this one, and how important it is in Prince's discography. I hardly see any similitudes to 70's progressive jazz such as Mahavishnu Orchestra or others that have been evoked, it's much more polished than any of these 70's experiments that were hybrid between progressive rock and 70's jazz, and often sounded quite messy even though they were really important at the time. You might like N.E.W.S. or loathe it but more than any of the albums we've discussed above, N.E.W.S. just sound like NOTHING Prince had ever done before (and ever did since). Only when Prince released The War did i make myself a similar remark: "Shit! Prince REALLY is exploring new grounds this time!". I really had such high hopes when N.E.W.S. went out! I though "at last, Prince is going experimental, at last, he's not repeating himself at all!", and no matter how i love latter records, it was such a disappointment to see him going back to easy pop, rock & funk stuff! The introduction to East is just the craziest shit Prince has recorded since Crystal Ball 15 years before: it just totally goes beyond his usual musical vocabulary! And once again weither you like it or not the musical level is absolutely astonishing. If you consider that it was recorded in one afternoon, that it was mostly improvisation, it's totally crazy to see how tight the band is, how they work together, how precise the musical vocabulary is, how they're able to jump into fast jams and keep it grroving for the duration of the tracks. Eric Leeds has never been so wild in his playing than on this album, Rhonda and John just are more mathematically cohesive than ever, and Renato and Prince dare lotsa stuff than they usually don't even on stage. N.E.W.S. is more funk than jazz, and once again it didn't make jazz history (but has any record since the mid-70's?), but it's more narrative than any of Prince's previous instrumental efforts, almost telling a story about the state of the world and its continents' cultures (i'd made a post about it a long while ago but i didn't keep the link, sorry), it shows an impressive band playing daring music, and it's more daring, risky and experimental than anything Prince had tried before save maybe 16 and The War.

Of course, all this is my humble opinion and you might disagree with my comments on these records, but here we go.

What i'd love to know now is if (and when) Prince is going to fully explore his potential with instrumental and experimental music, what it will sound like and how far it will go, if of course he ever does.

Up until that, i'll keep enjoying his pop/funk/rock efforts, but i won't be as impressed as i know i could.

[Edited 8/23/10 15:12pm]