Acid Jazz
Acid jazz is a club-oriented style that combines jazz with funk, soul, disco and hip hop beats, born in London in the 1980s.
It grew out of the rare groove scene, where DJs such as Gilles Peterson played old jazz-funk records for dancers. The name, a play on acid house, was also given to the Acid Jazz record label founded in 1987. Bands mix live horns, electric piano and funky bass with looped beats and sometimes rapping or soul vocals. It is lighter and more dance-focused than jazz fusion, and more live and jazzy than the house music that shared its clubs.
Artists it is known for: Jamiroquai, The Brand New Heavies, Incognito, Us3.
- Family
- Jazz & Blues
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- London, 1980s
- Also called
- club jazz
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,300 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have acid jazz among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Acid Jazz artists
Jamiroquai
Thievery Corporation
Digable Planets
GuruThe acid jazz artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.