Rope a Dope / Ryko
2007
The Harlem Experiment
About This Album
The third entry in a series that began in 2001 with The Philadelphia Experiment and followed with 2003's The Detroit Experiment doesn't attempt to distill the music of an entire city, but rather a neighborhood within one. But that neighborhood being Harlem, there is enough culture to draw upon to create a dozen volumes, and so producer Aaron Levinson and Ropeadope Records founder Andy Hurwitz had their hands full. Simply trying to decide how to sum up on one newly minted all-star session all of the music that has emanated from within this storied section of New York City must have been a most daunting task, but The Harlem Experiment succeeds in mashing jazz, R&B, funk, hip-hop, Latin, and even klezmer -- Jews once comprised Harlem's largest ethnic group -- seamlessly into one steaming, exciting creation. The musicians who form the core of The Harlem Experiment are in themselves a varied, theoretically disconnected bunch: guitarist Carlos Alomar is best known for his work with David Bowie; Steve Bernstein is a well-known N.Y.C.-based jazz trumpeter; and Don Byron is primarily a jazz clarinetist whose adventurousness has taken him to klezmer, Motown (he recorded a fine tribute album to saxophonist Junior Walker), and elsewhere.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,8,13 and 15)

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