Verve Remixed 2

Verve Remixed CD2 can't be considered a complete success, though it certainly represents a valiant effort by compilers and remixers alike to reimagine 14 more classics from the Verve catalog. Even more so than on the first volume, this remix album benefits from the informed matchings of original performance with remixing artist, by producers Dahlia Ambach Caplin and Jason Olaine; if modern disco maestros Metro Area can't conjure a piece of genius music from the deep-groove Latinized funk of Hugh Masekela's "Mama," then it's mission impossible. Likewise, bits-and-pieces sampling maestro Matthew Herbert is the perfect choice to take on Oscar Brown, Jr., a fellow loungecat, though from a previous era, and Gilles Peterson himself could barely have imagined setting loose Dan the Automator on Willie Bobo's classic boogaloo tune "Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries" or allowing Koop to recontextualize the sweet melancholia of Astrud Gilberto's "Here's That Rainy Day." Unfortunately, a dream often butts heads with reality, and these 21st century remixes not only don't upstage the originals, but in several cases, wilt even as solid dance tracks. Excellent, imaginative producers such as Mr. Scruff or Felix da Housecat or Miguel Migs simply don't function as well with this material forced on them, even if it's material they enjoy. Several of these tracks, however, do work in splendid fashion: Mondo Grosso's Shinichi Osawa does a great job by simply grabbing the hook (plus a bit of the solo) from Archie Shepp's "Blues for Brother George Jackson" and crafting a pumping house track out of it, while Gotan Project injects the perfect sense of gypsy swing into Sarah Vaughan's beguiling "Whatever Lola Wants." Many parallels exist between classic jazz and modern dance, and many artists from the one have influenced the other, but combining the two still demands a sense of perspective and humility that these producers don't possess.