Electronic Jazz: Barney Mcall

Barney Mcall is a pianist and composer who makes good electronic jazz music that leans more towards the jazz side, unlike many of the more electronic based groups talked about here. As with other heavily jazz influenced electronic jazz artists he plays and comes from straight ahead jazz and has added the use of electronics to his music to create electronic jazz. His music is also very influenced by the film score sound since he is also a film composer.

Many of Barney Mcall's tunes have a nice blend of acoustic and organic sounding ensembles mixed with a subtle use of electronics that only comes through in various moments. He also makes use of electric guitar but always in a way that blends with the ensemble. One of the other artists mentioned on this electronic jazz site, Kurt Rosenwinkel, is on his latest album and contributes some nice electric guitar lines.

Barney Mcall has created a more jazz leaning and acoustic leaning side of electronic jazz that will probably appeal more to jazz fans than electronic fans, but the electronics that he does use may help bridge the gap. For some wide ranging, film score inspired, electronic jazz, check out Barney Mcall.

Electronic Jazz Music - Zero 7

Zero 7 is a band that can sometimes be considered electronic jazz, though they lean more towards electronic pop music than improvised instrumental jazz elements. Still, for a fan of electronic jazz they might be worth checking out.

The first Zero 7 song anyone heard of was probably 'In the Waiting Line', a nice coincidence because this also happens to be one of their most jazz influenced songs. Everything about this tune is electronic jazz, with an electric piano, ride cymbal heavy drumming, jazz/blues vocals, and some nice electronic embellishments and audio effects to round things out. This is really a great example of how accessible and pop like electronic jazz can get, and its probably the best song Zero 7 will ever make, but thats ok, some of their more recent tunes also have a nice jazz feel mixed in with the electronics. Theres also a nice rhodes solo near the end of the song.

I would like to see Zero 7 embrace some more jazz elements, and I also think they should use the singer from this song in all of their songs, rather than getting different singers for different tunes and albums.