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Smackdown: Jazz Fusion
Since its emergence in the late 60’s, jazz-rock fusion has been controversial. Jazz purists decry its use of rock styles, electronic instruments, and what they feel are its commercial pretensions. Yet fans consider it visionary and experimental. As fusion makes a comeback with new albums and tours (not to mention the revivalist genre acid jazz), we debate the merits of the “F Word.” Joining us are Will Layman, columnist for Popmatters.com and a contributor to NPR, and Howard Mandel, arts journalist and president of the Jazz Journalists Association.
Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on jazz-fusion
Tell us what you think of fusion: Is it commercial, bombastic and kind of cheesy? Or cool and open-minded? Leave a comment:
Howard Mandel's Jazz Beyond Jazz blog
Will Layman on Return to Forever's new album (popmatters.com)
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Every great thing spawns masses of cheap knockoffs and so it is with Miles and his landmark recordings "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew".
There are/were also legions of lame practitioners of earlier jazz styles. Some things never change.
Jazz fusion grew increasingly less interesting as it became increasingly more drawn into the use of a backbeat. Jazz Rock, as some called it, morphed into Rock Jazz, and the compelling work of early groups such as Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra eventually gave way to Spyro Gyra, and–-God save us--Kenny G.
(Interestingly, the former two are just memories, while the latter two drone on.)
John, I couldn't agree more with your post. While I was curious enough to want to read about the RTF reunion (at one point in my high school days as a budding musician my favorite band)I could not bring myself to go.
Once I realized I was never going to be able to play on that level, and once bands like the Sex Pistols showed that that was not a prerequisite for making music of earthshaking power, consequence and meaning, my attention turned to fusion bands of a different, more mortal variety such as Television and the Bad Brains.
In retrospect what I can still listen to and take inspiration from is the ELECTRIC JAZZ, (not fusion)of the Tony Williams Lifetime, early Weather Report (c. Live in Tokyo) and Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi Sextet, along with others never associated with fusion like Sonny Sharrock, Blood Ulmer, etc.
I put it this way, is like keep adding sugar to a cup of water. There is a point where the sugar won't dissolve anymore.
In other words is a saturation of music. Off putting after a while.
The closest thing i can resist is The Mars Volta. I repeat, the closest thing.
what about the Dan? as in Steely Dan
Hey all you fusionheads! Where does Herbie Hancock fall in this discussion? What if the sound is fused more with funk than with rock?
ZAPPA
This genre was born out of the jazz world's desire to get some of the $$$ rock was getting in the 60's. It started out with the best, Miles, Mahavishnu, Tony Williams, Chick Corea, Weather Report, so it didn't have anywhere to go. It's also interesting to note how prog and art-rock ran parallel to fusion and fell by the wayside with the advent of punk and hip hop. Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu was and still is the best of fusion, bar none.
Where does Blood Ulmer fit in here? Very interesting guitarist....
PHI ZAPPA CRAPPA! Does it get any better than this stuff? Me thinks not.
the first time I heard it, I thought Bitches Brew was a trip-hop album.
I think a lot of 14 yr old boys and girls are listening to Rush is that the Nintendo Wii is bringing being a guitar virtuoso back into style.
If you pan over to the other side of the spectrum, you will see musicians like Alan Holdsworth and IOU, then the solo albums like Wardenclyyfe Tower. Their motive in exploring the fusion region was decidedly not mercenary.
Fusion was a wonderful attempt to add new instruments, sounds, and rhythms to what was generally a fairly restricted form (based on show tunes, conventions of horn solo followed by rhythm section,etc. )
Of course there were excesses, but after hearing chorus after chorus of neo-be-boppers playing on rhythm changes hearing some of the cuts on the show reminds me there were some great things back then.
Bring back fusion!
I have to say that when I think Fusion I don't think of any of the stuff you guys are chatting up. I think of the SoulJazzFunk of folks like Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd (and a bunch of others who worked with the Mizell brothers), Lonnie Liston Smith and even early EWF and Kool and the Gang all of which form the foundation of most contemporary "Underground" black music from hip hop samples and neo-soul grooves to deep house. The stuff you are talking about was and is mostly a snooze.
Anything that adds the energy of Rock while retaining the freedom of Jazz... Then I gotta hear it. Yeah and Al Dimeola made a quite a few bucks off of me too.
Must now dust off "Romantic Warrior", thanks John.
- - -
Just two words to add Allan Holdsworth.
He's worked with nearly all of the people and groups I respect here.
What Dimeola is saying amongst other things, is that these bands lacked artistic discipline.
And he's absolutely correct.
I love Bitches Brew. I think that it is still relevant. Long pieces of music are great. I think that challenging people's attention span is a good thing.
Wow, that was really uncomfortable.
How can you experts not mention the first all electric
album by RTF "Hymn of the 7th Galaxy"?? With the soulful, fire-breathing guitarist Bill Connors, this album is the very model of organic Jazz-Rock. Not the ersatz midieval poop they practiced in the post Connors era. In all fairness they did a few great records - specifically "Where Have I Known You Before?" prior to lapsing into bloated excess. To many savvy fusion fans, "7th Galaxy" is the real deal - a game changing classic that embodies the compositional and improvisational range that this music is capable of. For many of us, Dimeola had plenty of chops but little raw passion & soul. The Bill Connors era RULES.
Thanks for having this conversation!
Addendum to my previous post (#3): another more mortal non-fusion "fusion" band I should have cited that I loved was the Rollins Band.
Also, a plug for some recent music in the same style and quality of the Mwandishi sextet:
Wallace Roney whose band features Geri Allen and Charnett Moffett.
And congrats to Soundcheck for a great segment - I forgive you for the Guitar Hero/Guitar Smackdown show.
Critics are so full of s**t. Still afraid of the word fusion. So silly. Brubeck "fused" classical music and jazz in the early 60's. The spirit of jazz is to explore, innovate, and move forward. Personally, I think the whole "authentic", "traditional" argument is boring. That's what gives us Eric Clapton as a bluesman. I'll take a Zappa blues approach any day. It stretches the form, takes it to another place. Young jazz cats were drawn to fusion in the 70's because it was exciting and fresh. It's critics who gave it a label. F**K labels. And by the way.."lotus on Irish Streams", is sublime, soaring, and touching. Not everything was a chop fest. "A remark you made" by Weather Report Totally beautiful piece of music that evolves slowly and has no "show-off" moments. there's hundreds of examples. Today we're stuck with Wynton's history lessons. Not very inspiring.....
Weird to hear DiMeola come on. First off ... great guitarist but, he is also VERY bitter towards Corea for his success since RTF. Meanwhile, Al does guitar clinics in music stores using his dated pedalboard sounds. I disagreed about the "long solos." I also disagreed with the guests inference about frenetic drums, which implied guys like Billy Cobham should go off and wail on them. Nuance and restraint are important but, not any more so than exploration and bombast. Bring it all on. That was the best part of fusion. Final note: the difference between good fusion and bad was/is heart. Virtuosity without heart is empty. Add heart to it and it's magic. Again ... Birds of Fire.
my father was a jazz musician and I was a rock and roller,,, fusion at its inception was a unsatisfying compromise, especially since it was trying to prove itself by taking itself so seriously, at the time. I respect Miles for his evolution and experimentation, but I don't necessarily enjoy it as much as his earlier "Cool Jazz". I like Al DiMeola's music much more now than his early work with Corea. Rite of Strings and his three albums with John McLaughlin are fascinating and eminently listenable, but Bitches Brew and some of Miles' later efforts were not,
The old adage still applies: "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing"
The Sex Pistols didn't kill the interest in "playing fast, technical" music. Shortly after their heyday, Eddie Van Halen turned the guitar world on it's head and lead to a decade of rock guitarists and hair bands driven by loud guitars and fast and frenetic guitar solos. Along side this very successful commercial vain of rock, the likes of Alan Holdsworth, Jean-Luc Ponty, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clark, and many more continued to explore and create musical triumphs and disasters along the way.
Also, to me fusion may have started with rock and jazz, but moved on quickly to incorporate any musical genre or style into a jazz or rock setting and clearly led the way to groups like Bela Fleck and the Flecktones for example.
What's with this dismissing of great jazz fusion by references to the Sex Pistols. Since when is the Sex Pistols the standard by which all other bands are measured, from Rush to Miles Davis.
The Sex Pistols made music that sucks, by kids with no real talent. Just because they were angry and rejected the over-complexity that rock music had developed by the late 70's, doesn't mean they're any good -- or that jazz fusion or Rush are dinosaurs just because they can play well.
Huh?
This is such a joke. Fusion led to some pretty terrible sounds, but In a Silent Way and the Mahavishnu albums mentioned here are among the best music of our age. The best fusion songs are the best music of their day, unfortunately the worst fusion songs were among the worst of their day, I think the latter gets a disproportionate amount of the attention.
While I agree with all of what Al Dimeola had to say, I'm sorry his message was diluted by his testy exchange with one of your guests. Also, sorry Herbie Hancock wasn't part of the conversation. He's always been a master at fusing genres, though, Mwandishi will always remain, for me, his most sublime fusion session.
I was pleased to be with John Schaefer and Will Layman in the "smackdown" re fusion, and sorry we didn't get to everything, everyone, and other important dimensions of the discussion. But here are a few of my fusion essentials (over RTF):
Tony Williams Lifetime esp. with organist/keyb Larry Young, Herbie Hancock (especially the Mwandishi band, which I heard live), Mahavishnu for sure (eager for Five Peace band with Chick, Garrett, McBride -- recent clips on youtube look promising), Lady Coryell & Coryell w/ McLaughlin & Corea "Spaces," Gary Burton, Jeremy Steig (w Jan Hammer), Blues Project, Zappa yes (Weasel's Ripped My Flesh!) and Beefheart!, Al Kooper's BS&T, Hendrix!, Paul Butterfield, King Curtis, Herbie Mann w/Sonny Sharrock & Duane Allman, Pat Martino, CTI-era George Benson & Freddie Hubbard, Zawinul w/ Cannonball, Weather Report to some extent-- and above all MILES MILES MILES. '69 to '91 and after. I've written in detail about Davis's productivity and creativity during the last, often dismissed, decade of his career.
'80s -- Metheny (w/ Lyle Mays) Ornette's Prime Time of course, Ulmer, Vernon Reid, Defunkt, James Black, Abercrombine-Jan Hammer, Oliver Lake's Jump Up!. '90s Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Scofield, Medeski-Martin-Wood. Now: Dave Fuicynski's Kif Express, Gabe Marin in Consider the Source, the Bad Plus, Tortoise.
And that's not exclusive or definitive. I take fusion broadly and seriously and enjoyably, blogging (www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz) and writing in books Future Jazz (1999) and Miles Ornette Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz (2008), articles in newspapers and magazines internationally since since 1975. More at www.HowardMandel.com.
As usual, I was in the car for this very interesting discussion. I see Howard's comment from ten minutes ago, so maybe I will still be relevant.
I am a "know nothing" in Jazz, but I am trying to learn, having some help from Steve Rowland, and listening to WBGO and the great Jazz programming at WPRB.
I first learned about Fusion and "Third Stream" in the Kyle Gann essays for the American Mavericks series.
So, I now have some Weather Report. I like Weather Report. I got there in a circuitous fashion. Dan Buskirk at WPRB played "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!" from the Cannonball Adderley album of the same name, with Joe Zawinul, the composer, at the piano.
So, now I wanted Joe Zawinul. I bought several Weather Reports "CD's" in mp3 at Amazon. When I then asked Steve R what he thought, he said hey, a super group that just never really made it.
But, I still like the band.
I also have some of the others mentioned above, Herbie Hancock, Bela and the Flecks, even Pat Metheny (but I got him from Hearts of Space), and of course "Bitched Brew", which I have just because it is important Miles Davis.
I agree with some of the criticism against this whole episode as a whole. Mr. Schaefer doesn't do much at all in articulating what he means when he uses the word "fusion". Is it to be differentiated from jazz-rock? Remember, Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears were jazz-rock groups. The first jazz-rock band to be noted as such were The Free Spirits (with Larry Coryell) who released their sole album back in 1965.
And why use Return To Forever or The Mahavishnu Orchestra as the basic exemplars of "fusion". It would be like someone to using Herman's Hermits as the prime example of British Invasion.
By the way, there was a great jazz-rock or "fusion" group from Philadelphia back in the early '70s. Their name was "Good God" and unfortunately their one album had never been released on CD. I had to burn one for myself using my old vinyl copy.
I think it's a shame that the commentators on this segment seemed to know so little about "fusion". All they could do was harp on the excesses of late 60s-early 1970s bands as an exercise in nostalgia. Apparently none of them know that there's a healthy fusion movement going on right now which, while the bands of course represent a spectrum of musical values and abilities, shows distinct development of the music since its beginnings. At the same time, they managed to get through the entire segment without once mentioning the Mahavishnu Orchestra or Weather Report, arguably the two most important originators of fusion.
If you don't know about John McLaughlin's last few recordings, or his current co-led band with Chick Corea (which has released a CD), or Allan Holdsworth, or Alex Machacek, or a long list of other current and recent music, you really shouldn't try to do a show "about" fusion. What about doing some research first? What qualifies any of the people who did the talking on this show to give an opinion when they don't ever listen to fusion?
My goodness, is someone a little touchy about hearing the great Howard Mandel criticized? Well, exactly what did you hear in that interview that indicated any awareness about the current state of "fusion" music? The fact that he is knowledgeable about some aspects of jazz does not mean that he doesn't have areas of ignorance, nor that he has necessarily done his homework for a radio show like this.
And: Sure, "fusion" is just a word and defining it to everyone's satisfaction would be impossible -- much like the word "jazz". But these words do have recognizable meanings, if not precise ones, and can be useful in focusing conversation. And your comment about McLaughlin and "fusion" is at the very least way out of date. Have a look at this interview and see how many times he uses the word to refer to a genre of music which he and other people perform: http://www.jazz.com/features-and-interviews/2008/5/6/in-conversation-with-john-mclaughlin
I guess that I am just not that hip. The concerts that have made me smile the broadest in the last twenty years?: RTF reunion, Phish in the early nineties, Tower of Power last Summer. I loved RTF as a teen and yet when I bought the anthology I haven't really enjoyed it that much. But seeing and hearing them live was a treat. I don't think it is just nostalgia I think it is seeing players really play.
Fusion is not about virtuosity!
Did you ever felt on your soul a simple 5/4 groove?
and those JazzFunkBluesRock Fusion from Scott Henderson? no one makes the guitar sound that way.
And what about Herbie Hancock? and there are so many others...
1 very important thing, Fusion is about being honest to your musical taste. Sharing it on the stage durin the jam session. Trading musical ideas by playing them on the instrument, and working them out together improivsing with other musicians. Being subtle into the band, dont destroing the work of anyone by playing over it.
Fusion is not about many guys playing at the same time. Is about a group of musicians who actualy are jammin together! thats the BIG Diference bettween Fusion and many other Styles that are based on playing allways the same.
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