Partnered with Will Smith, he helped make hip-hop happen. So why’d it take so long for Jazzy Jeff to make an album all his own?

At any given moment in Philadelphia, DJ Jazzy Jeff Townes is making, and remaking, hip-hop history. For instance, consider one chilly week last May. The air may have been unseasonably cold, but inside mega-disco 1616 Locust the crowd had found the heat: sweating, soaking, digging an “Illadelph Experiment,” a now-legendary party for which Jeff and The Roots’ Ahmir Thompson brought together Philly’s best hip-hop DJs to celebrate the generations and gyrations of local hip-hop.

Released Aug. 20 through London's prestigious "artist-first" label BBE, The Magnificent is already gathering European club interest, Manhattan radio play and dance-zine press. But its arrival begs the question:

It's been 20-plus years since Jeff, 37, kicked off his career on the block party/ballroom circuit of West Philadelphia, and nearly a decade since he made his final LP with the Fresh Prince, a.k.a. Will Smith.

Since his 1979 DJ debut, he's won fame as the spinner who brought precise percussive skills to "scratching" (live manipulation of vinyl LPs and cross-faders); the musicmaker who made his bones alongside cinema's now-biggest male star; and the owner/operator of Philly's A Touch of Jazz (ATOJ) production company and studio, known for its collaborations with stars like Jill Scott and a cadre of now-famous-on-their-own producers. In between, Jeff produced some of Eminem's first-ever tracks, designed the first sound mixer made specifically for the scratcher, wrote a tune for Bart Simpson (on 1990's The Simpsons Sing the Blues), played a teen Lothario on a weekly TV series and won rap's first Grammy (for "Parents Just Don't Understand").

"It was a matter of time for Jeff to go solo, to show that his music was deeper than precision percussive scratching," says King Britt, fellow Philly DJ and BBE artist who met Jeff when King was just a prince at Central High School. "I think of Jeff as someone who has really made it in every sense of the word, yet stayed focused on seeing that Philly remained on the map."

"This is where my influences are," says Jeff from the dungeon-esque ATOJ Studio on North Fourth Street. "Everything I've had and everything I am comes from here. If I went and lived somewhere else, my music would sound like somewhere else. Ever see what happens to a great comedian when he gets money and fame and leaves town, the place where all his great stories stemmed from?" he asks seriously. "He ain't funny anymore."

Precision. Fun. Philadelphia. These things made him famous. They made him famous first in a Philadelphia that doesn’t exist now, the one that the “Illadelph” party seemed to replicate: a town where the hip-hop vibe was born and bred at house parties like the ones in his West Philly neighborhood.

"Those are olllld school," says Jeff. The 57th and Rodman native, known then as Jeff Townes, grew up a stone's throw from Cobbs Creek Park, spinning in his basement, going to high school at John Bartram, honing skills in a genre still in its infancy (put it this way: The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," the first commercial hip-hop 12-inch, came out in 1979) when he debuted by playing a block party on his street. "What was fortunate was that ours was the only block party that day." Jeff can't smile any wider while remembering that moment: set up on a porch with two turntables, looking onto the street, everyone grooving to records from Brass Construction, Mass Production and Earth, Wind and Fire.

"Jeff was the first cat to have the new Pioneer 1200 turntables, so he was immediately fascinating," says ATOJ founding partner Vikter Duplaix, who was only 12 when he met Jeff. "Plus you had to focus on something other than the party because they always got broken up by the cops."

As a native of 58th and Cedar, Duplaix rode his bike from block party to block party to hear the only non-commercial music you could get outside of Wendy Clark, a.k.a. Lady B, Philly's Godmother of Hip-Hop, who spun at WHAT 1340 AM and later hosted her own show, "Street Beat," on Power 99 FM. Duplaix became a DJ himself, and following his stint with ATOJ went on to create Axis Music, a Philly-based group responsible for producing and writing for Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Mos Def and The Roots.

"It's funny to think this, but the concept of a professional environment -- of how I came to help Jazzy start his studio years later -- came from hanging at his block party gigs," says Duplaix.

It was the time of WDAS-FM radio DJs like Doug Henderson, Tony Brown and Butterball and their Unity Days at 46th and Haverford. Kids like Jeff spent their lunch money on 45s by Peaches & Herb -- three singles for $.99 at Sound of Market.

"There were no hip-hop records," says Jeff. "Anyone young who was spinning spun their brother's records or listened to WDAS. If you were rhyming, you were rhyming over ŒGlide.'"

Hip-hop in 1979 became black America's alternative music: designed, in its time, to be the young person's version of the swirling singsongy-ness of its soulsonic predecessors. Before "hip-hop," you took your breaks from Parliament or John Davis & The Monster Orchestra.

This would change, in part, due to the raw ribald raps of West Philly's other best-known entity, Jesse Weaver, a.k.a. Schoolly D, the 52nd and Parkside native who brought the punk to the funk and stripped hip-hop to its barest bones in 1983 or '84 ("I was drunk," jokes Schoolly. "I can't remember") with his own label's independent 12-inch, "Gangster Boogie."

"I used to walk to see Jeff whenever he was spinning -- 20 minutes by crow, a long straight walk," says Schoolly. "We knew each other first by mutual reputation. Still, watching him spin was like, goddamn, so fast."

"All my pals knew what I could do," says Jeff. "But when cats from the north side of Market Street figure it out, that's when you get a reputation in other neighborhoods."

Other neighborhoods meant other DJs block-rocking as well as playing the most prized parties: the ballrooms. Philly's world back in the late '70s and early '80s was separated into DJ and location. Cosmic Kev held down the fort for Mt. Airy and Germantown at the Wagner Ballroom; Lightning Rich had North Philly and the hall at Holy Souls High; Grandmaster

Nell held South Philly. Cash Money was in Yeadon. If you were looking for Jazzy Jeff you went to the Wynne Ballroom. Other DJs like B Force, Disco Doc and E-Man Disco dotted the region.

"We may have been separated by location, but we weren't by music or competition," says Jeff. "We all thought it was so great that we were the kings of each region and that we'd become the don just by bringing our buddies in to spin in your area."

Hotel Philadelphia on North Broad Street became the meeting place, an intersection of all Philly neighborhood crowds to meet and party, to be exposed to every DJ's differing grooves. Ballrooms, YMCAs, block parties -- "anyplace that could provide portable music became the backbone of Philly hip-hop, not just for me but for everyone and everything," says Jeff. Together, the MCs and DJs represented a map of Philly hip-hop, and Jeff was the compass.

"I couldn't read or play music. Still can't." He learned all he needed to know about music just by hanging around the house. "I grew up with a dad listening to Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith and my brother [Jimmy Townes] digging Mahavishnu Orchestra and Chick Corea when he wasn't busy rehearsing bass with The Intruders in our basement."

Because Jeff came up in the era of the DJ, and not the musician, he took what he learned about cadence, rhythm, triplets and tone and applied it to spinning. Instead of a drum solo, he could paradiddle, swing or jump on the off-beat with what would become hip-hop's defining musical principle: the scratch. It could be long and languorous, it could be a chirp scratch (snagging a record's highest note and making it chirp like a bird), it could be a fader-flickering block of sound.

"Scratching is a percussive instrument," says Jeff. "All I did was adapt. I have perfect pitch. Literally. I know the sound of sharps and flats. After that, it's bars and beats, swing or straight, and me in the middle scratch-spinning."

In addition to his innate musical chops, he also acknowledges the contribution of fellow DJ Cash Money.

For as long as there has been an itch to scratch in this city, there's always been the question: Who invented Philly scratching, Jazzy or Cash? Like Jazzy, Cash was -- and still is -- a king of the fast-fader and the sound-bite. Unlike Jeff, Cash was a showman.

Being the king of Philly's DJ scene in 1985 was an important title. Even New York City spinners knew to pay respect to the ones in Philly. "Philly was the DJ town, without a doubt," says Schoolly D. "Manhattan, Queens -- they had the MC competitions beat. But they couldn't touch Philly for its DJs."

"It didn't matter anyway [who was king]," says Jeff. "Once Will and I made a record, we killed Philly's hip-hop and ballroom scene. Nobody wanted two turntables. Now they wanted one turntable, a drum machine and some guy rapping. It wasn't about Philly anymore. It was about conquering the world."

The year between summer 1985 and summer 1986 changed Jeff’s life. He met Smith, an area MC he’d heard of from being around the house-party circuit, in 1985. “Not much said,” says Jeff, now. “I can’t even remember the exact night.” One night, months later, when Jeff’s regular MC missed a gig doors away from Smith’s house, Will made himself available. “The chemistry was instant: how did he know I was about to bring this record? How did I know his punchline was on the fourth bar and to drop out? Plus we were the biggest jackasses each other ever knew.” They had such a great time that when his usual MC returned, Jeff was miserable.

"I didn't have drive or determination. Will was the outgoing one, the one with all the emphasis, sweating and smiling." They got together for good by the 1986 prom season, the week that their first single, "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," was released on Word Up, a division of Pop Art, a local indie label run by Dana and Lawrence Goodman. The playful tune with its I Dream Of Jeannie theme-song sample seemed at first an unassuming trifle. That is till you couldn't get the damned jovial thing out of your head.

"You know, on my first album I had used a Mr. Ed song or something," says Schoolly. "But when I heard that Jeannie sample and saw how Jeff's song was charting, I was like, ŒDamn, why didn't I think of that?'"

"We were already the kings of the proms and the after-proms," said Jeff of now-famous Bobby Dance-promoted affairs known for their lavishness and singular dedication to Philly's African-American community. "We played the mall. The single was out. We touched practically everyone who was set to graduate in May and June 1986. There wasn't a kid who didn't know our schtick or our song."

By late summer 1986, despite being overshadowed by New York City's coterie of star DJs, Jeff -- scoring a minor hit with "Girls" -- simultaneously knocked out crowds and competitors by winning the DMC Magazine regional turntable championships at Manhattan's New Music Seminar with ease.

Jeff was up against the already legendary likes of Barry B. (from Doug E. Fresh) and Cutmaster DC in one of the most packed-tight ballrooms the Marriott Marquis would ever witness. I should know. I was there. Tape-recording the whole thing. (No. I can't find it -- the most hunted request by hip-hop aficionados worldwide ... now.) He was the underdog, the guy with no rep beyond his hometown. "I was no battle DJ. I didn't have a battle mentality. I was the guy who put out ŒGirls Ain't Nothing But Trouble.' What could you expect from me?" Jeff says that he was set up to lose by being offered shaky turntables against a world champion. But he didn't complain: "I deliberately used [the] messed-up turntable just to prove something. I didn't want anyone to make any excuses." Armed with his own needles -- Radio Shack ADC, $12 each -- and a can of WD-40 to loosen the cross faders, Jeff relied on skill to make his rippling chirp scratches.

"It was a sonic phenomenon," says Duplaix of Jeff's ability. "When scratching began, it was sloppy. DJs didn't care. Cash Money, he's internationally known. But he would sacrifice flow for heroics like placing his nose or rubbing his ass cheek on the turntable. Great to look at. Lousy to dance to."

Jeff's scratches were heard round the world -- a sound that any DJ will tell you is to hip-hop what Elvis' pelvis wiggle was to rock 'n' roll. He was the first to combine the quickness of the double turntable backspin with precision and flow, a combination that can be heard in every collagelike turntablist since: DJ Premier, Q-Bert, the X-Ecutioners and the forlorn swipes and swatches of Peanut Butter Wolf.

"It's like this," says Duplaix. "Dr. J mastered the slam dunk. Everybody copied that. Until Michael Jordan. All of a sudden, everybody looks like they're standing still. That's the same effect Jeff had on turntablism."

Meanwhile, record execs were smelling big bucks in hip-hop. Jive/Zomba Records -- the same company now producing platinum-plated 'N Sync and Britney -- began buying up and buying out everything hip-hop they could get their hands on. Jeff and Fresh Prince went with Jive when the German label bought out their Word Up contract.

"Look, I thought I'd wind up working for the gas company," says Jeff with a smile. "We were just happy to be on a national label with label means. We could go gold. We could take better pictures for the cover of the LP," he laughs, seeing how 1987's debut, Rock The House, showed them adorned in Run-D.M.C. wear.

With Will's fun freestyle raps and Jeff's breezy diversity, the gold-selling Rock the House set the stage for the team's sound as well as for 1988's He's the D.J., I'm the Rapper and its MTV-prevalent single and video "Parents Just Don't Understand." That summer there was nowhere you could go without hearing that loopy tune. Along with selling nearly three million units of its double-LP package -- a rarity in hip-hop then -- it brought the team a level of success that was embarrassing in more ways than one.

With their boyish looks, Cosby-sweater cool and wholesome lyrics, the duo immediately became poster boys for scrubbed-clean black youth -- and the antichrists of rappers on the raw tip.

"Jive wanted me to be like Will all of a sudden," says Schoolly D, notorious for his leather-and-sunglasses machismo. "My image was a comic outlet. I figured with the sunglasses I could do anything. But the label? They acted like Jewish mothers: you got such a nice face, why don't you take those glasses off and put on some nice clothes. Like Will."

"Once ŒParents' became a hit, the diversity was drained from us," says Jeff. "The most important thing became following the hit. We lost anything about us that was fun."

The other thing that success brought them was the cursed "sellout" label, credible street hip-hop's ugliest nightmare. Worse yet, Will and Jeff were tagged as suburban sellouts: the smooth rich-kid pop side of hip-hop that could never have come from the inner city's urban jungle where harder acts like EPMD's Strictly Business came from, and where Eric B. & Rakim talked up the idea of getting Paid in Full by any means necessary. It didn't help that they went from opening for Run-D.M.C. to headlining a tour co-starring Paula Abdul and New Kids on the Block, a move that saw them dissed for bringing suburban white kids to hip-hop's fold. (Currently, this is the same thing that Jay-Z is praised for.)

"Suburbs? I came from 57th and Rodman. Rakim? We came up with him. Yet some folks figured that being liked by three million people meant it had to be suburban," rants Jeff in one breath. "It was true to the extent that white kids suddenly dug hip-hop. We created hip-hop crossover."

True -- to an extent. White kids did suddenly dig hip-hop more than ever. Will's universally applicable G-rated words and Jeff's non-threatening sounds helped. But labels and producers by 1987 had been throwing "street beats" into every music they could get their hands on. Run-D.M.C. had already played Live Aid and gone triple-platinum with an album, Raising Hell, that sampled Aerosmith and The Knack.

"I wanted everyone -- black and white -- to enjoy themselves," says Jeff. "I didn't know whether to defend myself [from that Œsuburban' label] or give in."

Defensiveness aside, next thing you know old Jeff's a millionaire at 24. Sure, making records became less fun creatively. What did it matter? A million dollars was a lot for a guy who didn't want much. He was a simple guy who loved his hometown, loved his new car, new equipment, new friends.

"You forget what got you there," says Jeff. "You start making records for the pretty girls and the guys around you with expectations. Your day becomes less about creating interesting sound and more about surrounding yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself."

Jeff was a stranger in an even stranger world. Not only was he a millionaire, he was a hip-hop millionaire.

"I didn't know any other 24-year-old millionaires. Who was I going to call for advice? Mom? She didn't have a million dollars. Will was in it with me. ŒWait. I have a million dollars! I must know something.' Money, along with making you think you're sexy, makes you think you know everything."

They didn't know everything. 1989's And in This Corner... failed to click in a climate of the rapidly progressing underground of socially conscious bands like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and party hip-hop from the likes of Tone-Loc and Young MC. "[Will and I] began getting snipey with each other," says Jeff, about the blame game. In 1990, NBC-TV brought Smith greater public adoration with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And who was Mr. Affable's best pal for six whole seasons? Jeff, as Will's streetwise buddy, Jazz. "We always had other aspirations," says Jeff of Will's burgeoning acting career. "But it did begin to crack us at the seams. We couldn't tour. Couldn't do a lot of things. It did set the fire under me to get my production thing going." As the '90s progressed, that "production thing" would grow from a studio in his mother's basement to a full-fledged production company (the name A Touch of Jazz came from one of his own songs).

Still, the duo had two more albums in them. One of them, Homebase (produced at ATOJ) brought the duo platinum sales and their second Grammy (in 1991) for "Summertime."

"That was a monumental song in hip-hop," says King Britt of Smith's lyrical tale of Philly seasonal nuances like barbecues, car washes and street-corner romance. "It was a clear picture of what summer is for the black community." Jeff sees the song as a testament to the fact that they could sell records and still make something stunningly creative.

Jeff never had ill will toward Will, never got angry or had false expectations. They had lasted five LPs and two Grammys in a time when most rap artists gave up after two releases. "Will didn't separate us. It's what the public and what the business wanted," says Jeff. "To his credit, Will was and is still all about the DJ -- keeping the element of the DJ alive no matter how big the production gets. Beyond explosions and dancers, Will will always say, ŒIt all started with me and Jeff.' Hip-hop may have become showbiz. But Will knows where it came from. Just us."

As just him, no longer half of a duo, Jeff had to first come to the realization that hip-hop had changed. The DJ, one of the original cornerstones of hip-hop -- like the block party and the ballroom -- had disappeared, to be replaced by the producer.

"I guess they figure why DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince or Eric B. & Rakim when you can simplify the billing and save money," says Jeff. "Just Will. Just Rakim."

The money he made as part of the Jazzy Jeff/Fresh Prince musical duo couldn't last forever. "Will and I had too much black pride to tell lawyers and accountants we didn't know what they were talking about." The pair had let lawyers handle everything, from taxes that never got paid to electric bills that left Jeff, quite literally, in the dark. "I came home one day. My electric's off. I'm in Philly. I call my accountant in New York. He jumped on it. I sat in the dark, feeling like a jackass. The fucking electric company is two blocks away. Why am I calling Manhattan to fix it? Because they made it simple."

Luckily, Jeff was a pragmatic spendthrift, investing most of his money in studio equipment. And he started paying his own electric bills.

He decided he'd find like-minded Philly musician/production sorts who hungered for something more than sound. "When he finally got off touring with Will, like '89 and '90, he wanted to take all that studio equipment he had out of his mom's and into someplace conducive," says ATOJ founding partner Duplaix, who at the time was engineering at Third Story Studio. "Jeff had money to finance, and equipment -- $600,000 of stuff was on order as we were moving -- but he didn't know where to put it, literally or figuratively."

Jeff was learning to be a professional studio owner and producer and production company mogul on the spot, moving his studio from Mom's house into one simple big room on the northern tip of Delaware Avenue. Duplaix was there to help him from the very beginning (their first big project was Homebase).

"Jive didn't trust us yet, so they sent their London-based house producer Pete Harris to be Jeff's shadow," says Duplaix. It wasn't until ATOJ got the contract to produce El Cid -- a New York City rapper signed to Warners -- that the newly minted studio would be allowed to do its own thing.

A Touch of Jazz also sought to further the production company ideal by developing artists, producers and executives. "It was about exposing trainees to the ropes of international music-making, the higher level of fancy studios and big-time attorneys," says Duplaix. James Poyser, a 58th and Baltimore native who would eventually partner with Duplaix in Axis Music, came through ATOJ in 1993 as a keyboardist. Poyser partnered with Duplaix on some of ATOJ's earliest work while Duplaix managed the studio/production complex's move from Delaware Avenue to Gladwyne in the mid-'90s. "It was overwhelming to me at 19," says Duplaix. "Jeff was no businessman."

Jeff never saw himself as boss, teacher or coach. He was still learning how to use the equipment himself. Rather, he was a facilitator, the guy with the full court, the balls and a room full of hungry players.

"Jazzy's name opened doors worldwide, no doubt," says Duplaix. "That was the reason anyone took me and James seriously at first." But by 1993, Duplaix, Poyser and another acolyte, Chauncey Childs, had outgrown the ATOJ brand name and ideal, and left to make their own mark as Axis.

In 1995, ATOJ moved to 444 N. Third St., where it remains today. A new team of players, writers and producers -- Andre "Dirty Dre" Harris, Vidal Davis, Keith Pelzer, Darren Henson, Carvin Haggins, Ivan Barias -- joined the assembly line.

Still, Jeff wanted a definable sound -- the spirit of live funky soul and the musical knowledge that guided his scratch-hand. "What if Motown boss Berry Gordy DJ'd?!" asks Jeff. "Take the idea behind those beautiful Earth, Wind and Fire songs I spun as a kid and make the drum sounds louder, harder. And always have live instrumentation." Only The Roots, his neighbors, were doing similar things: drawing on the emotional pool of music they grew up listening to on Power 99 and WDAS with a live soul revue feel and hip-hop modernism.

Jeff's only rule: have no limitations. Tap into feeling. "I'd seen what limitations can do," he says ominously.

"When Will and I hit it big with one idea, the labels wouldn't let us change. We had other ideas. We just couldn't execute them.... Don't give anyone an opportunity to call you the next new thing 'cuz soon they'll call you the next old thing."

That's why Jeff still fears the "neo soul" tag that the industry has bestowed on the creamy, live sound of Philly artists. "I hate that name," says Jeff. "It'll kill us all."

Still, if it hadn't been for Jeff, that sound probably wouldn't have taken off as it has.

An early example of the sound was the record he did for Valvin Roane, a.k.a. V, a Philly singer/writer whose 1993 "It's Raining" topped Power 99's "9 at 9" countdown. "ATOJ was producing records like Motown," says V. "My melodies were perfect for that."

But things really blew up when ATOJ found Philly's biggest export since cream cheese, North Philly's Jill Scott.

The street-poetess/singer/actress from 23rd and Lehigh had been through venues like October Gallery, Painted Bride and Black Lily. "I already did the work of finding my voice as a singer and a writer before I met him," says Scott between sessions at ATOJ for her next Hidden Beach CD. "Jeff gave me a place to be and the right folks and setting to make the music happen."

In Scott, Jeff saw confirmation for his radical theory of live soul. "I felt what she was doing. I was so happy I wanted everyone to hear her."

Like Will Smith on "Summertime," Scott knew well the world of block parties, ice cream trucks, open fireplugs, candy stores and music of all eras blasting loudly from cars and bedroom windows. The fun of that era coupled with a jovial live music family would make Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1 a multi-platinum smash hit; a street-y ambient-slow-soul sound that gave Scott's cool, flighty voice ample room to breathe. "It was Jill who stuck to her guns where old soul and emotion were concerned," says Jeff. "Her label followed suit. From there, we wrote and played music to give her the room she needed, music that was an extended version of what we did for V."

The industry buzz around Jill was potent. Other assignments and major successes followed; local lights like Musiq (Soulchild) and Bilal achieved platinum and gold status, respectively, on records produced by ATOJ's team of super-writers and producers. So did international stars like Michael Jackson (the critically lambasted Invincible had only one universally lauded track -- Andre and Vidal's "Butterflies"). Even Will Smith, now signed to Columbia, recorded two albums, including 1999's platinum Willenium, at ATOJ.

A deal through DreamWorks Records seemed poised to establish ATOJ as a label imprint, allowing Jeff and his production company cohorts the opportunity to discover, mine and produce local soul stars based on the "neo soul" tag. Their first discovery: Floetry, a duo of Brit-expatriate gals relocated to Philadelphia.

But trouble was brewing. Jeff saw his directorial role as too distanced from the actual making of music. "I looked up and I was a button-pusher, a baseball coach," says Jeff. "I liked being the guy to call the shots, at first. But I wanted to get in the game. Get away from just business. I have always hated the business."

Also, after years of not making money, ATOJ had suddenly become big dollars and cents, with everyone, quite reasonably, looking for the what's-theirs amongst the credits. "I think I did OK in paying people more than fairly when we weren't making money and giving everyone their proper due," jokes Jeff on having to cover studio costs, insurance and rent. "But these guys were 23 when I was 32. They wanted what I wanted at that age."

(An additional headache occurred this month: ATOJ's deal with DreamWorks fell apart. With Floetry as the only act ATOJ's imprint had developed, DreamWorks bought out the girl duo's contract and will release the Floetry CD in October with a credit that reads "Co-produced by Jazzy Jeff Townes." Jeff would not comment beyond this. At presstime, the DreamWorks' A&R team were unavailable for comment.)

When music became business again, Jeff's assembly line fell apart. The individual producers desired their own identity, their own money. They outgrew him. "You gotta crawl before you can walk," says Vidal Davis about the situation. "But there's never been a feud or a bad word. We learned everything there."

Finally, Jeff feels that no matter what these guys do -- Vikter's CD for Disney's Hollywood label, Andre and Vidal's work with J-Lo and Justin Timberlake, Poyser's Soulquarian stuff with D'Angelo -- they were all touched by his Touch of Jazz.

Like Will before him, Jeff signed to Columbia in 1999 in order to create solo works. He speaks of this decision almost casually now, though it was a crucial one -- and ultimately a disappointment.

Under the arrangement, Jeff did make one solo CD: a rough, funny live-funk-hop-jam starring De La Soul, Common and then-newcomer Eminem, who had recently signed with Interscope. But the finished work was never released. Now considered a lost grail of hip-hop, the record was deemed uncommercial by Columbia, who wanted, honestly, to know where there was room for a collaboration with ... Will Smith.

Major labels, it seemed, still wanted little but cliche. "[Columbia] kept insisting that wasn't the case. But when Eminem broke [with the Dr. Dre-produced Slim Shady], they wanted that track [from Jeff's unreleased CD] bad. I had to point out that they were wagging their own dog."

He asked Sony to let him out of his solo deal, and swore he'd never make another solo CD.

"His love of music may have allowed him to enable things musically," says Duplaix. "But he needed time to see himself within the industry before he could move forward musically."

So how did The Magnificent get made? Enter a crack new batch of ATOJazzers covering everything from publishing (Tina Byers) to executive branching (Irize Refined) to writers, producers, DJs and players (Chef Word, V, P Smoovah, Pete Kuzma, Kenwood, Kev Brown, SatOne, Pauly Yamz) hungry to learn and to hang in the basement, making music.

Enter Britain's indie BBE label and its burgeoning Beat Generation series of producer-centric CDs meant to take artists out of their usual commercial milieu. King Britt, who is currently wrapping up his own BBE CD with Schoolly D and Bahamadia, says the British label has a vibe in tune with this city. "BBE and Philly are both like family. And like the Philly Sound, everything BBE does filters into each and every DJ's box. Freedom, Philadelphia freedom to them, is the key word. That's key to Jeff."

"When they told me to do this -- not to worry about sales or Jill fans -- I had to deprogram myself," says Jeff of what would become The Magnificent's six-month project. "It became the hardest album to start and the easiest album to finish. It was the most liberating thing and the most depressing -- like, what do you do when it's over?"

The Magnificent brought Jeff back to the aesthetic sensation of Rock The House (with Will), the camaraderie of his old and new crews and an opportunity to make a record without the burden of big-label money pressures. But going solo also meant that he could be the one in charge of all the data, whether choosing the samples, the songs, the beats or the rappers.

His ATOJ complex -- offices, workout center, meeting room, studios -- is a happy mess. There are boxes of Cap'n Crunch, platinum LPs of Jill Scott (the hit) and Eminem (the one that got away) hanging near a tile mosaic of ATOJ's insignia. In the darkest of all studios -- a low-ceilinged room crammed with hallway video monitors, turntables and an assortment of Palm pilots and BlackBerries -- sits Jeff in Sean John velvet pants and patent leather Nikes. He's in constant motion: hands in every pot and on every pod. No move is wasted.

He wanted, despite his well-known love of old soul, to make The Magnificent neither future nor past. "I wanted the emotion those old sounds entail. But I wanted to make this a snapshot of the present: December 2001 to May 2002."

Having watched pop-hop listeners skip over most CDs' tracks in order to get to one good song, Jeff wanted to do for his own record what he did for Jill Scott's: make one great continual album that mines feeling with no hits and no skits.

The progressive soul-jazz-live-instrumentation-turntable stuff that Jeff made famous is coupled with new rappers J-Live, Baby Blak, The Last Emperor, songstress Flo Brown and pals Jill Scott and Boyz II Men's Shawn Stockman to highlight 360 degrees of Jeff: the bubbling fusion of "Musik Lounge," the summer funk of "Shake It Off," the breezy jazz of "For da Love of da Game."

"It had to showcase everything I and my crew were about -- conversations we had on a daily basis, our mutual disenchantment with the industry, the [present] moment." Nothing on The Magnificent does that better than Raheim's stark Afro-centric "My People."

"I was thinking about Sept. 11 and told Raheim that. He went into the studio without words, pinned a pad against a wall and started piecing it together in the booth. He was so taken aback by what he could do -- the emotion of it -- he didn't even want to sing it."

Ultimately what Jeff is trying to say with The Magnificent is that there is life beyond Jay-Z and the linearity of commercial hip-hop. He may be uncomfortable with the fact that press worldwide wants to talk about this CD, that radio in Manhattan has already picked up on its tracks despite its Aug. 20 release date. He may even feel uneasy about starting work on another project -- a jazz-meets-world music CD for BBE. But as long as he can spin that new project and the next one and The Magnificent on turntables, he's overjoyed. The fact that he can hang with his longtime girlfriend Robyn at his condo on the Delaware River, eat at Pat's or Striped Bass, spin old school classics at Fluid, then fly to South Africa, where he spins hard house and hip-hop, excites him even more.

After that first "Illadelph" party, Jeff seemed to be all over the place. Fluid on South Fourth Street announced that Jeff would spin a night of hands-in-the-air hip-hop with DJs Cosmo and Rich Medina. A month later, fliers starting appearing on area windshields for DJ Jazzy Jeff spinning a corporate-sponsored Smokin' Grooves after-party. Two weeks later, he DJ'd an X Games soiree for Shampoo. And now he's about to go on tour.

"Once he figured he could loosen up -- play classic hip-hop as well as house music -- to the younger, more racially diverse audience in Philly now, he got addicted to spinning again," says Duplaix, who's told Jeff tales of his own international spinning trips.

"It can't be the money," laughs Schoolly D, who, like Jeff, spins regularly throughout Europe and Japan for big bucks on the basis of their old-school hip-hop cred. "In London or Tokyo, I can make $1,500 to $5,000 a night. In Philly, someone phones with, ŒWe've got $50!' I do it occasionally. Jazzy does it a lot. Out of love. For him, it's about keeping in shape. He does it in Philly because this is home -- where all his stuff is."

"Through Jeff, the event was legitimized to folk who never had a chance to make it out to our parties," says DJ Brendan Olkus, whose party, "The Joint," was represented. "You hear his knowledge of music while spinning. Not many people have that symbiotic relationship -- unless they are responsible for it somehow."

He is responsible for that music, the sound of the past. But he's also responsible for new music. That's what The Magnificent is finally meant to do: bring that old Philly Jeff into the present. That mix is what Jeff's getting used to. That mix is what he now requires.

"I don't want perfection or big-name guest spots. I want feeling," says Jeff. "I may complain about hip-hop, but there's a lot of stuff I do like. I'm just saying that there's more listeners than CDs and that there's plenty of great music to go around. There's got to be room for all of us on the radio dial and in the record shops out there. I don't want to be famous and not be able to pay my own bills again."