Greyboy

Once a Stateside acid jazz kingpin, Greyboy now ranks as one of the few who made it through the acid jazz meltdown with his credibility intact and his creative purpose renewed. But while his gaze drifted eastward toward New York and London years ago, it's been locked in on his SoCal digs in San Diego of late, as he refines a hybrid of hip-hop, Cuban sounds, '70s soul and full-on funk. Mastered the Art covers a bracing breadth of grooves - from nasty hip-hop to beefed-up takes on the silken soul that lapsed into wine-bar background music after the initial excitement surrounding acid jazz wore off. For the most part, Greyboy and his collaborators turn a blind eye to fads, musical or otherwise, in finding ways to toughen up the funk without losing either the sense of nuance that keeps a groove from being a sledgehammer or the restlessness that prods him to find new ways of giving up the funk.