Skate jazz is music curated and arranged for its contribution to the foundations of future music, and for its improvisational likeness to skateboarding.
The likeness is real, not poetic. Skateboarding at its best is improvisation within a culture and space - movement and societal reaction that never happens the same way twice. Style is the whole point, except when it's not. Jazz sometimes works in a similar way: the structure holds until it doesn't... The leader might decide, the player might.
Gonz and Coltrane's Giant Steps. The first Supreme video by Thomas Campbell to A Love Supreme. Guy and Herbie Hancock. A special feeling. Memorable and unique. Unpredictable.
In Cosmic Valentine Issue 1, Ray Barbee curated a wonderful Skate Jazz playlist that he felt captured the feeling. When listening you might recognize some parts even if you've never heard the song - they were the building blocks that musicians kept building from. Same as skateboarding, art, etc...
Hope you like it!
Listen and watch
Skate Jazz playlist, curated by Ray Barbee
Mark Gonzales, Video Days
Supreme, A Love Supreme (Thomas Campbell, 1995)
Guy Mariano, Mouse (1996)
Jason Lee, A Visual Sound
Cosmic Valentine is an independent creative studio, zine, and workshop based in California. Born from skate, surf, punk, vintage racing, underground art, and obsessive design. Zines, skateboard hardgoods, and skate jazz.
