Various

Getting today's leading electro-pop and hip-hop artists to remix jazz classics is a concept that could reap either terrific or repugnant results. While Verve's Remixed 3 contains a few of the former, most of its material is more intolerable than intriguing. The intent here is generally not to pay homage to old standards, but rather to dismember them and figure the bodiless parts into the remixers' musical agendas. Occasionally the bad turnout is simply a mismatch of musical styles and not a selfish mangling of the material, but that doesn't change the fact that they don't sound proper. Granted, there is the occasional track that doesn't feel like a desecration as much as an honour. RSL's "Sing Sing Sing" by Anita O'Day stands on its own as a dance track without resorting to butchery. RJD2's remix of Astrud Gilberto's "Gentle Rain” is exactly how the rest of the album should sound: a bit of the old mixed with a bit of the new, not the new claiming the old. These tracks, however, as good as they are, are hard to digest along with mixes like the Postal Service's offensively trite mutilation of Nina Simone's "Little Girl Blue.” Of course, this album contains some pleasant, danceable tunes — cocktail music and club hits. But these musicians can make that kind of stuff on their own, without having to sap the power from Verve artists who are better left as they are.