How the Soulquarians Birthed D’Angelo’s ‘Voodoo’ and Transformed Jazz

 

The Soulquarians didn’t set out to revolutionize the pulse of modern jazz. Maybe it’s an overstatement to imply that they did. But there can be no doubt that the slouchy, loose-jointed, atmospherically humid funk that they alchemized in the studio — specifically, Electric Lady Studios, in Greenwich Village — had a reach well beyond the scope of neo-soul, the inexact genre coalescing around them. A considerable number of young jazz artists were paying close attention to what they were doing, at any rate. A few even got in on the ground floor.

For a handful of years straddling the turn of the century, the Soulquarians treated Electric Lady as a clubhouse — a perpetual hang unburdened by the usual ticking clock of the recording studio.

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