Music Evolution

Music Evolution
Studio album by
ReleasedApril 1997
Genre
Length64:14
LabelSony Music
ProducerBranford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis chronology
The Dark Keys
(1996)
Music Evolution
(1997)
Requiem
(1999)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic

Music Evolution is the second album of Branford Marsalis's jazz/hip-hop/rock group Buckshot LeFonque. Featuring guest appearances from David Sanborn, Guru and Laurence Fishburne, the album peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. The album is notable in Branford's discography for marking his first collaboration with pianist Joey Calderazzo and bassist Eric Revis, both of whom would go on to record in his quartet in the 2000s and 2010s.

In his AllMusic review, Leo Stanley calls the album a "stronger, more confident record" than the first Buckshot LeFonque album but criticizes it as uneven, noting that it "(finds) a vibrant, exciting common ground between hard bop and hip-hop" despite the "occasional lapse into aimless fusion." Writing in JazzTimes, Josef Woodard said the album "suggests a free-form radio show with an accent on African-American culture lineage." People magazine praised the album as "a sonic explosion that, even when it falters, is infused with the joy of playing."