While many jazz fans left the genre with its metamorphosis into the often-chaotic "fusion" style and its incorporating many of the new pop music directions, many new fans were brought in because of the new hybrids. This compilation has Giles Person chronicle the tradition and the transition on one disk and Jazzanova giving a window to where it's at today,
On the first side, Peterson uses tracks such as Randy Weston's "In Memory of" to show where jazz found new life by feeding off of the new genre that was funk. In that same theme, Art Blakey's "Anthenagin" sounds like a mash-up of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" and every fusion jam of the 1970s. There's an example of the transformation of gospel (put into the national spotlight by Edwin Hawkins) via Rashaan Roland Kirk's "Spirits up Above" which is reminiscent of "Jesus is the Lover of my Soul" but with a stellar jazz sax jam. There's also a few classics included such as Coltrane's genius "Equinox" and Eric Dolphy's "Fire Waltz," which to jazz connoisseurs is standard stuff but to broken beat/nu jazz fans, this might serve as the golden key to a whole new and unfamiliar kingdom.
The second disk is definitely the weaker of the two solely because of its peppering the side with what sounds like weed-induced nonsense and will only reinforce the traditionalist's view that jazz ain't what it used to be.
In the end, the Kings of Jazz is a good study of jazz's ever-changing manifestations and possibly will be any education to the both the old and new school.
