Talking with Honeydog Adam Levy about jazz, hip-hop and Sunday's "Lush Life" gig

Originally published at MinnPost.com, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010

Adam Levy

Jazz and hip-hop get along famously, even if some jazz purists don’t approve. Hip-hop artists have long mined the jazz catalog for samples, and many jazz artists who grew up with hip-hop flavor their music with beats, sound bites and scratching. Both genres include elements of improvisation; spontaneous composition and conversation in jazz, freestyling, DJing and emceeing in hip-hop.

 

This Sunday at the Southern Theater, some of the Twin Cities’ most popular and accomplished hip-hop artists — Mayda, Ill Chemistry (Desdamona and Carnage the Executioner), Toki Wright, Omaur Bliss and others — will offer their takes on classic jazz songs in a program called “Lush Life: Interpretations of the American jazz canon.”

The instrumentalists of Heiruspecs are the house band; keyboardist DeVon Gray (dVRG) is the music director. Adam Levy (The Honeydogs, Liminal Phase, Hookers & Blow) and DJ Jake Rudh (Transmission) will host.

“Lush Life” is the first show in a three-part new music series called “Southern Songbook.” The series continues on Feb. 14 with “Desire and Death: New love songs on yearning and loss” and April 14 with “The Rites of String: The intersection of song, songwriter and strings.”

MinnPost spoke with Adam Levy by phone earlier this week.