Urban jazz
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Urban jazz is the fusion of smooth jazz and R&B/hip-hop music. Urban jazz usually contains strong R&B percussion and bass lines. The better known urban jazz artists are Boney James, Urban Jazz Coalition, Nick Colionne, Wayman Tisdale, and Paul Jackson, Jr.
Due to the natural progression from jazz to hip hop and hip hop's sampling of jazz, it only made sense to cover hip hop and R&B with jazz musicians.
Some of the more successful releases in this genre have been more creative while other more laidback releases have struggled. One great release Hidden Beach Unwrapped featured Paul Jackson Jr, Mike Phillips, and vocalists covering Notorious BIG and other hip hop acts. This led to a series of imitation releases including the lackluster Streetwize.
A genre that is definitely growing, urban jazz has an increasing audience on non conventional radio, TV and especially the internet. More recent projects like DefJazz, and jazz's convergence with drum machines and rhythms at times help project this genre toward a younger audience.
