Further distanced in time from John Coltrane's spiritual new-jazz and the influential second Miles Davis quintet, Doug Carn showed a close affinity with r&b when recording his fourth and final Black Jazz album Adam's Apple. Sharing his interest in r&b was a platoon of committed, resourceful jazz musicians including young star-in-the-making Ronnie Laws, who'd worked with Earth, Wind & Fire before that band's big commercial breakthrough. Of the others, ace guitarists Nathan Page and Calvin Keys had acquired intimacy with the soulful properties of African-American music of the time performing with the premier jazz organist Jimmy Smith.

Doug's newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his 70s classics. There's no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's past work but which could only have been made right now. One can detect nods to musical motifs by Carn's jazz peers that have served as frequent sample fodder, but his compositional and improvisational integrity remain indisputable throughout.