Mix of the Day: Jazz Amnesty Sound System #30

If you’re a frequent MIMS reader, then you know we have mad love for a great project known as the Jazz Amnesty Sound System (Andy Williams & DJ Luv). Well, to celebrate their 30th mix in the stellar J.A.S.S series they decided to put out an epic 3 hour mix attempting to give the listener the experience of jazz mutating from 1889 to 2011.

I asked DJ Luv to let us know a little bit about how the J.A.S.S project came to be:

Luv: “J.A.S.S. came about after I djed a friends wedding who specifically asked me to play a few hours of jazz during the dinner. During the set many people (young & old) came up and commented on how good the music was. I would usually respond with “well it’s Art Blakey” or “It’s Coltrane, of course it’s good!” This got me thinking that nobody in town was exclusively pushing jazz behind the decks and that it was fun to do. Then, thinking it would be funner with a partner and I instantly thought about Andy. We had been wanting an excuse to do something together and he is a wealth of knowledge and generally an all around good guy so I mentioned the idea to him. He was into it and, as it turns out, we both had similar tastes in jazz but not similar records, which meant combined we had one killer jazz collection. The Jazz Amnesty Sound System was born.

The idea behind the Evolution of J.A.S.S. mix is a chronological look at jazz music so the listener can actually hear the music transform before their very ears. I am personally quite interested in how music evolves and how influences trade hands from generation to generation. Jazz is the perfect genre to do a mix like this with because it has been around for as long as recording technology has been and has gone through many changes. Also this mix idea is something we want to do more often. We are thinking it could make a nice live performance, as the idea can be recycled but the set can always be different by using different recordings each time we perform while retaining the chronological aspect of the mix. Perhaps even adding a visual element to it.”