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[FUTURISTIC JAZZ] Few members of Portland's jazz community pay attention to what's happening on New York's knife edge anymore. Comfortable purveyors of the music's more classy (and still-lucrative dinner-party) era, most professional local musicians don't have the time or energy to cast their gaze toward the future. But for drummer Barra Brown and bassist-beatsmith Alex Meltzer, whose newly formed electro-jazz duo Korgy & Bass launches with EP Vol. 1, the hip, evocative sounds emanating from drummer Mark Guiliana and the laptop of post-Dilla hero Flying Lotus are as important as anything Art Blakey ever did. Young, talented and musically aspiring, Brown and Meltzer aim for the souls of discontented, under-40 KMHD listeners on this two-track debut, which features the mellow vocals of equally discontent singer Coco Columbia. "She Said," the opening cut, combines Columbia's legato vocals with ethereal synthesizers, eventually giving way to a grooving outro. Its follow-up, "F#m," is more universally head-bobbing, featuring a choppy beat with looped flutes one can imagine a local MC having a field day with. It may be bite-sized, but EP Vol. 1 is one of the Rose City's most honest efforts at harnessing L.A.'s current Kendrick Lamar-driven tidal wave of sound, a sampler that balances between outright hip-hop and heartier jazz fare in a way that is delectable and captivating—especially for those who have heard one too many versions of "Summertime" lately.
SEE IT: Korgy & Bass play Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St., with Catherine Feeny and Chris Johnedis, on Wednesday, June 22. 9 pm. $7. 21+.
Willamette Week