Someone turned the Ocarina of Time soundtrack into a perfect Zelda jazz album

Last year, musician and video essayist Adam Neely published a fascinating look at what he dubbed “the Nintendo-fication of jazz,” a phenomenon that has seen jazz bands of all stripes, but particularly big bands, increasingly playing arrangements of the fast, frantic music from games like Mario Kart to sold-out audiences. Neely goes into lots of reasons (musicological and otherwise) why this is happening — it’s well worth a watch.

Now we have another example of this phenomenon, but in a rather different form, from a different starting point. GameChops, a record label which specializes in albums of chilled-out covers of game music — usually in genres like lofi and synthwave, and with titles likes Chocobo & Chill or Poké & Sleep — has released Zelda & Jazz, a rearrangement of the classic soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for jazz trio. And it’s pretty magnificent, actually.

Projects like this often end up a bit like musical cosplay — a fun idea that wears out its welcome quite quickly, and doesn’t get under the skin of either the original music or the chosen genre. But there’s no doubting the musicianship here from the artists dubbing themselves — of course — The Deku Trio. GameChops calls the music “coffeehouse-style” jazz, and it’s both very relaxing and musically sophisticated, with piano taking the lead over upright bass and whispering brushed drums.

Each track takes one of Koji Kondo’s indelible, simple melodies and briefly reharmonizes and improvises around it for somewhere between two and three minutes. (If there’s a complaint to be made about Zelda & Jazz, it’s that these tracks are kind of short for the genre.) Tune after tune finds a perfect home in this new setting — from “Zelda’s Lullaby” to a casually uptempo, swinging “Song of Storms” — and there are some gentle surprises, too, like the shifting, ruminative chord changes of “Sheik’s Theme” or the bebop syncopation of “Gerudo Valley.” It’s good stuff!

Cutely, GameChops insists the trio is composed of Princess Keys (Zelda) on piano, Lincoln Beats (Link) on drums, and G. Dorf (guess) on bass — as portrayed in some charming illustrations by Riana Dorsey. In fact, the arrangements and piano performances are by Rob Araujo. Give him a (very relaxed) hand.