Headphones: Terrace Martin - "808s and Sax Breaks"

Although it wasn’t the first, ever since Danger Mouse created “The Grey Album,” the famous mash-up between Jay-Z – “The Black Album” and The Beatles – “The White Album,” every DJ/ musician/ random person with an Internet connection has been trying to create the next great blend or mash-up. Despite the innovative and sometimes stupid works that have been birthed from that tape, I never felt any of it was truly groundbreaking or made me look at the original work differently. As I previously wrote, Kanye West – “808s & Heartbreaks” has recently become an album I’ve learned to appreciate the more I listen to it. As if on time, I’ve recently come across a mash-up/re-working of the album in the form of Terrace Martin – “808s & Sax Breaks.”

As the name implies, the album is a jazz re-working of five tracks off of “808s and Heartbreaks” (“Say You Will,” “Heartless,” “Amazing,” “Love Lockdown,” and “Street Lights”). The album keeps with the original 8-bit background music from the original instrumental, but replaces the heavily auto-tuned Kanye with a sax. Even with the original instrumental, the album comes off as more Jazz-centric and laid-back than the original. The saxophone plays Kanye’s parts, but the tone is calmer and the notes are slurred together, erasing the sometimes staccato features of the rapping/ singing.

There are times when having only a saxophone addition to the song seems to take away some of the potential. In “Heartless,” one pair of saxophones plays the chorus while another starts a short free-style section. Although both parts are playing different notes, having the same instrument play over itself does not have the same effect as when a singer/ rapper performs over their own part. If only with a simple addition of a trumpet or another instrument in the section were provided the piece would sound more complete.

This is not to say that having the majority of the record having only the addition of a saxophone a bad thing. In “Love Lockdown,” not only do you hear probably the first auto-tuned saxophone performance on record, a guitar is added in the final section to give the record an additional dimension. This one part adds so much to the record that imagining the guitar accompanying the saxophone through the other tracks makes you truly see what could have.

The only truly bad thing about the EP is its length. The quality is so high, giving a new and calmer dimension to probably one of the most debatable hip-hop albums of all time, while the result runs a mere 20 minutes. When the EP ends the listener is left wanting more. The feeling is even stronger for those who found the original “808s and Heartbreaks” deplorable. This presentation offers a look more into the instrumental side, re-working it to be more accessible to those in the laid-back Jazz arena. Overall, the EP is a good demonstration of how to successfully re-work an album while keeping the original source material intact and still be innovative.