‘Stolen Moments’ Draws Together Jazz, Hip-Hop Artists : Music: A fifth Red Hot release aimed at raising AIDS awareness features unusual pairings from US3 and Joshua Redman to Pharoah Sanders and the Last Poets.

First it was Blue, most recently it was Country and now its Cool.

The Red Hot organization is back with “Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool,” its fifth album to raise money to fight AIDS. This album definitely breaks new ground with musical compilations that are as unexpected as they are provocative.

Consider these pairings: Herbie Hancock’s mellifluous keyboard tones accompanying the soothing voice of Me’Shell NdegeOcello. Joshua Redman offering torrid sax lines with hip-hoppers US3. Pharoah Sanders uttering edgy cries on top of a straighten-your-spine recitation by one of the Last Poets.

The album, released in late October on GRP Records, is a melting pot where such jazz and hip-hop artists as NdegeOcello, Redman, Branford Marsalis, rapper Guru, the Digable Planets, Donald Byrd and Ramsey Lewis come together to proffer fresh, original material that has a single cause: AIDS awareness.

As with previous albums, all services by the musicians on “Stolen Moments” were donated. All proceeds from the album will be distributed to organizations that promote AIDS education and relief, with special emphasis on aspects of the epidemic that tend to be chronically underfunded. “For instance, it’s difficult to attract corporate donors to programs like needle exchanges, so Red Hot is happy to provide funds for those socially problematic but very necessary programs,” says Brian Hanna, a spokesman for Red Hot.