With the recognition of rap and hip hop as legitimate art forms, it seems it was just a matter of time before the young '90s proponents of the genre shifted gears from utilizing samples of '70s R&B to uncovering the seminal music that in many ways provided the catalyst for the heavy funk grooves of that decade. Without jazz, there would have been no funk.

Blue Note Records, owned by Capitol Records and now celebrating its 54th anniversary, boasts the recorded works of practically every major jazz act to have made music in the past forty years. For London-based Geoff Wilkinson and Mel Simpson, the chance to use the incredible resource of the Blue Note catalog as a backdrop to modern-day raps and rhymes is unprecendented. The creative possibilities seem endless. So does this album.

Hand on the Torch features a cast of young rappers, jazz musicians and the recorded works of some of Blue Note Record's legendary recording artists. For the samples, Us3 selected works by Herbie Hancock, Rueben Wilson, Lou Donaldson, Big John Patton, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Thelonious Monk, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Horace Silver, and Donald Byrd.

What Hand on the Torch sounds like is a long-winded version of "Watermelon Man" with messageless rap lyrics performed without any hint of attitude: good, bad, or otherwise. "Jazz" means innovation, experimentation, taking chances, improvisation, and pushing the envelope. This disc does nothing of the kind.

The programmed, synthesized drum beats are boring and all began to sound the same. The rapping, performed by Kobie Powell, Rahsaan, and Tukka Yoot monotonously speak in one instance of messing up your life with drugs, and then of using drugs to help have a "Lazy Day."

There is some good instrumental work on the disc by some of Britain's top young players: trumpeter Gerard Presencer, trombonist Dennis Rollins, sax men Ed Jones, Mike Smith, and Steve Williamson, guitarist Tony Remy, pianist Matthew Cooper, and percussionist Roberto Pla. They are all limited by the constraints of the formuliac samples and inhibiting rhythms.

As a rap album, Hand on the Torch doesn't cut it. As a jazz album, it doesn't come close. I am still trying to figure out what it is and where it fits. Perhaps it doesn't.

Reviewer:  W.C. Uher, courtesy of Flash Magazine.