Russell Gunn - Ethnomusicology Vol 2 (2001)

Grammy award-winning trumpeter-flugelhornist Russell Gunn hails from East St. Louis, Illinois, the hometown of Miles Davis. Like Davis, the fiery Gunn uses jazz to improve the pop music of the day. Today, rap is the thing, and Gunn knows how to keep one foot in bebop and the other foot in hip-hop without sounding corny. This CD offers more of Gunn's all-encompassing alchemy with his top-notch ensemble, featuring bassist Lonnie Plaxico and keyboardist Marc Cary, along with DJ Apollo on the turntables. Gunn cooks up a pleasing sonic stew, from his funky take on Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy" to Big Pun's salsa-rap hit, "Del Rio." Duke Ellington is brilliantly updated by the Gunn crew's urbanized reincarnations of "Caravan" and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Go-Go Swing)." Carl Thomas's ballad "I Wish" is beautifully rendered by Gunn, and "Dance of the Concubine" shows how easily the musician flows into Brazilian grooves. With Russell Gunn, Ethnomusicology, Vol. 2 is not a class--it's a musical adventure. --Eugene Holley Jr.