What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm just talking about what led me to lose interest in the whole fusion idea. Probably part of it was (oops, sounding like a jazzhead again!) that the "jazz" (that is to say open-ended and improvisational) side of "jazz-rock" tended to become increasingly marginalsed. It's a long time ago now, but I remember thinking early in the 80s that I wasn't really interested in it any more, in comparison with free jazz and its various strands, which were of course much less subject to the temptations of commercialisation. It was the mention of Weather Report a few posts ago that set off this train of thought - their early albums are bringing something really new to the table, but the commercial success of Heavy Weather (1977) led them in a much less interesting and original direction, same with things like Return to Forever's pseudo-classical Romantic Warrior and so on. Having mentioned the "bad name" of fusion, I should also mention that at the last festival I played at, I ended up in a long and enjoyable and somewhat under-the-influence late night conversation, punctuated by musical examples found on Youtube, with the drummer Ståle Liavik Solberg about our favourite moments from fusion music. I wish I could remember who we talked about!

Various downsides to Fusion included the tendency in many of its drummers to over-depend on the backbeat, or over-emphasise it in the manner that could inhibit or blot out anything else of interest that might be happening iin juxtaposition. Improvisation could thereby be hemmed in, made subordinate to and limited by a restricting rhythmic framework. A second would be soloists' over-dependence on blues clichés when otherwise lacking in creative resourcefulness or out of fear of "losing" the unaccustomed listener. A third might ironically be static harmonic limitedness, especially in some of the early jazz-rock under the influence of e.g. Cream, where improvisation would interminably proceed on a single root as if in search of some mythological equivalent, when in fact (of course!) African and many other pre-Europeanised musics are both rhythmically and "harmonically" highly complex, if not by academic Eurocentric definitions! There is somewhere in Ian Carr's Music Outside where he frankly admits that the single note root-based ostinato facilitated unlimited scope for improvisation - an ironic reflection on the modal jazz that had preceded rock fusion had come about in a quest (by Miles Davis chiefly to start with) to de-clutter improvising from the chromatic over-elaboration (for which read intellectualisation) inherent in Bebop. Leading Fusion drummer John Marshall's answer when I posed the problem of locked-in backbeat syndrome was to say that the solution was always to maintain interest by such means as accent displacement and always being alert to signals arising within the group interactivity, or initiating these oneself. He roared with laughter at my comment that one motivation for such responsiveness might result from interpersonal animosities being expressed in performance - Pete Brown, Cream's lyricist, has described situations in which Ginger Baker had clearly thought, well, if I hit an unexpected accent right here, it will completely drop Jack right in it, struggling to work out how to get back into the flow!

In a 1980s Radio 3 series on Herbie Hancock Ronald Atkins mentioned Hancock as admitting to the harmonic limitedness of his mid-70s Jazz Funk, whose main interest was polyrhythmic and in terms of new textures and timbres enabled by advances in electronic technology, being one of the reasons for his partial return to acoustic post-bop with the VSOP group - basically Miles's mid-sixties sextet with Freddie Hubbard in place of Davis. Hancock had crested on the successful formula he had ineluctably formulated before his own principles married to an innate disposition not to allow music to stagnate led him back into his own rich harmonic reservoir, but one can cite many groups creatively if not commercially saddled with the creative limitations imposed by stadium performance desiderata which quite rapidly led to over-inflated surface appeal in bands contemporary with Headhunters such as Earth Wind & Fire and Funkadelik, analogous with white Progrock bands such as Yes and Genesis at the time - and the split twofold backlash of Punk and Hard Bop revivalism was bound to follow. My own point of giving up on Fusion came when the recorded output of funk bands became virtually indistinguishable, even when led by such fine musicians as Stanley Clarke and George Duke, though there were still a few that were more than listenable: I would include Pat Metheny's (to me) successful blend of Latin, C & W (which I normally hate) and post-Weather Report influences among those Joseph K cites; indeed it was this type of blend that would re-invigorate Fusion with the Loose Tubes gathering of musicians in the UK in the mid-1980s, the more innovative M-Base in the States, and following on from them, F-Ire Collective at the turn of the Millennium. Otherwise the more easily identifiable hallmarks of Fusion have now been absorbed into jazz's contemporary mainstream for the best part of 3 decades at least.

[Jazzrook]

Donald Byrd with Sonny Red, Pepper Adams, Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitous & Mickey Roker playing the title track from the BLUE NOTE album 'The Creeper', recorded in 1967 but not issued until 1981:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=l6yyvxCgakw

JR

[Joseph K]

SA, I am curious to know whether you have any examples of African music that is harmonically complex (even if not by European standards). I do have a CD of music from Burkina Faso that features some quite interesting heterophonic singing (IIRC). Also, I'm afraid I would like some clarification on what you write about harmonic stasis - I'm not sure what your criticisms are; personally some of my all-time favourite music like Miles's early fusion albums are harmonically very static, but this just opens up the improvisation for greater freedom and often denser textures, depending on the size of the ensemble used. In any case, while some mainstream jazz and some (jazz-)fusion is harmonically static, some music in these genres feature complex harmony as we know - Allan Holdsworth for example. I guess the harmonic stasis, as you must surely know, is a feature of much of Eastern music. Coltrane was fairly explicit when he wrote a tune called 'India'. As for the purported harmonic limitedness of HH's mid-70s jazz-funk, I don't think it is - just listen to 'Actual Proof' - but even if it was, I think that criticism would miss the point, somewhat!

Apologies if you already know or agree with any of the foregoing - I may have misinterpreted what you've written.

[RichardB]

I've never really thought that the "problem" with later fusion has to do with whether it's harmonically static or tied down to a backbeat or not - for example Ornette's Prime Time music, which is sort of fusion by default, and its progeny like Decoding Society, are at the same time both static and complex in both harmony and rhythm. The problem is more to do with unmemorable themes and mindless shredding!

[Ian Thumwood]

It is interesting to read this debate about Fusion because the one thing that I feel has been lost in this debate is the fact that a lot of it has not stood the test of time, largely because of the fact certain generations had their own distinct keyboard sounds, bass riffs or grooves. I would also have to say that the whole Jazz-Rock / Fusion debate is really broad because the genre covered such a wide base. In it's favour, I think that the developments in the 1970s did faciliate it for jazz to branch out in all sorts of directions, many having very little to do with each other. The music by groups such as Eberhard Weber's "Colours", Miles Davis' later aggregations, Weather Report, John McLaughlin, Terje Rypdal and Chick Corea were all totally different and indeed often changed directions themselves. There was always a very wide base for fusion and I just feel this exploded exponentially in the 1980s as the ideas were absorbed in to the mainstream and the less tasteful elements were sloughed off.

Coming from disovering jazz in the late 1970s/ early 1980s, I have to say that I explored the music my Dad was in to and then first worked backwards tp explore the original sources of inspiration and then worked forwards so that by the time I was 16 I understood where this music led up to including the contemporary jazz of the time. By that stage, it was not just Wynton Marsalis who was giving Fusion a hard time and we should not lose site of the fact that much of the criticism of that time and publications like The Wire were hostile to Fusion too. Regardless of any merits the music might have had, artists like Joe Zawunal were not getting good press in the mid-1980s. If, like me, you were exploring jazz in thr 1980s, the consensus was Fusion was dated and lacked credibility. It was freqeuntly dismissed. However, I would argue that alot of the finest jazz of that period did owe a lot to Fusion albeit the jazz element of level of music was far more in the mainstream and the commercialisation seemed to be shed for a more genuine and rewarding result. Eventially, what might have been considered to be mainstream ./ contemporary in the 1980s would probably have been labelled Fusion in the 1970s - I am thinking about musicians such as John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Steps Ahead, Pat Metheny, etc, etc.

I think Fusion has never been able to 100% lose it's reputation as being somewhat inauthentic and I remember reading a review around 1990 in The Wire which argued that the whole Fusion movement in the 1970s as a whole witnessed the worse decline in the quality of jazz since Swing bands became popular in the 1940s. I think the analogy with artists like Glenn Miller is acually a very good one. Just as with this bandleader, in Fusion you can find some exceptional recordings with credible jazz at the same time as things which are truly dreadful as it reached out for a broader appeal to people who were not really music lovers. In fact, I would argue that something like "Heavy Weather" is effectively a big band record produced by a jazz rock outfit which sought to produce music with a broad palette of colours from keyboards as opposed to reeds and brass within a context of distinctive arrangements. In addition to the fact that alot of Fusion has aged poorly, the sheer broadness of what it encompassed was something that can equally be applauded and also dismissed. There would be no Smooth Jazz without Fusion and similarly I think that artists like Alan Holdsworth are typical of people working in this broad oeuvre who would have attracted a greater share of their audience from fans of rock music who were frustrated with the limited scope of much rock music and wanted to listen to something more challenging. A lot of jazz fans would be suspicious of someone like Alan Holdsworth. You are unlikely to come to his music from listening to Charlie Christian and I am sure his core fan base will have come from a rock audience who would never have heard of John Coltrane. In the 1990s I sometimes encountered musicians from local rock bands at workshops / gigs and they were always coming to jazz through fusion as opposed to a more orthodox root. It always struck me just how venerated Jaco was amongst the local musicians who played rock. The same probably holds true to someone like Alan Holdsworth. I was totally oblivious of him in the 1980s and whilst I can appreciate the sophistication of his playing and composition from the clips Joe has posted, there is the nagging doubt as to whether his music is too far removed from more mainstream notions of jazz. It is funny that I am less reluctant to dismiss other styles of jazz where it has fused itself with other styles of music whether it is classical music or world musics whereas I feel that when it has aligned itself more to rock, it ultimately seems to either acquire a shorter shelf life or is tainted with accusations of being commercial. The argument is not so much about the musicality of fusion but maybe more about having durability. As far as opening up people's ears as to what jazz can be, I would argue that this is probably it's most enduring contribution - even if being somewhat inconsistent.

The one elmeent which has also been lost in this argument is the effect of Fusion of mainsream jazz in the 1970s and how musicians from the 40s, 50s an 60s had to adapt their own playing to accommodate the fashions of the times, whether that is rubbery sounding basses or the excessive use of back beats. Some musicians like Miles Davis could pick up the baton and run with this whereas I think there were far more whose music suffered as a consequence of trying to pander to the popular taste of the 1970s. This is something that has been totally ignored in this debate and maybe contributes to why a lot of jazz fans would still consider Fusion to be a bad word. The whole fusion thing destroyed a lot of jazz careers in the 1970s and you can appreciate why many felt Wynton at the very least or things such as the Loft scene were totally necessary .

[Serial_Apologist]

Well Ian has really put the cat among the pigeons on the subject of Fusion*, and I shall try and respond to some of his viewpoints as well as to Joseph K.

* Where and when should one use capitals, it at all? I can never make up my mind. I feel for example one should distinguish Swing as the period of big band 1930s and early 1940s jazz and its small group subdivisions, from swing - should one therefore use Bebop, Mainstream, Trad, Hip-hop and so on; and if so how far should one go? Classical music, Postmodernism, Impressionism, Jazz, Blues, Rock 'n' Roll, or trad? I'm always bugged by this!

[Serial_Apologist]

SA, I am curious to know whether you have any examples of African music that is harmonically complex (even if not by European standards). I do have a CD of music from Burkina Faso that features some quite interesting heterophonic singing (IIRC).

Yes - I'm no expert at all on non-western musics, quite the reverse, but Burkino Faso would be in the bag as far as what I probably oversimplistically would call harmonic complexity in these areas - the complexity being as such from the western academic theoretical perspective of how harmonic processes of tension and resolution can be seen as such if not viewed from the primarily linear, polyrhythmic or polymetrical character of the structuring of this music and, say Balinese Gamelan music.

Also, I'm afraid I would like some clarification on what you write about harmonic stasis - I'm not sure what your criticisms are; personally some of my all-time favourite music like Miles's early fusion albums are harmonically very static, but this just opens up the improvisation for greater freedom and often denser textures, depending on the size of the ensemble used.

And yet, the original impulse seems to have been to simplify away from the chromatic elaborations Bebop had evolved, which in some Cool jazz, Tristano's for example, had been carried to the edges of atonality. It only appears to be ironic that modal jazz evolved its own vocabulary of chromatic improvisation if one sees jazz evolution as being autonomous, self-contained and sheltered from the complexity of all that is around it. In this sense Coltrane's increasing chromaticism is already interestingly reflected in how one of is main influencers at the theoretical level, George Russell, was drawn to interpreting previous advances in terms of modes and scales, in opposition to how modern classical academics would describe similar musical innovations within their province, in speaking of passing notes, bitonality etc. It's hard for the classically-raised music student to get their head around jazz's preference (for largely practical purposes) for chord symbols and thinking of chords as coming out of scales as opposed to being arrested horizontal movement voicings.

I tend to see George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Theory as being as much a symbolical descriptor as an equally valid way of analysing musical procedures. A modal chord (let's say) can be built out of a scale which a western thinking-based analyst might just describe as chromatic, augmented etc; detailed examination will doubtless reveal Coltrane's use of juxtaposed modes as complex as Messiaen's. Yet some jazz musicians seem to have taken jazz writer's description of modal jazz as a simplification or reduction from Bebop literally and adhered to Coltrane's early practice of using simple scales; and with rock's ubiquitous reliance on the blues scale the two simpifications were then carried into the more simplistic manifestations of jazz-rock

In any case, while some mainstream jazz and some (jazz-)fusion is harmonically static, some music in these genres feature complex harmony as we know - Allan Holdsworth for example. I guess the harmonic stasis, as you must surely know, is a feature of much of Eastern music. Coltrane was fairly explicit when he wrote a tune called 'India'. As for the purported harmonic limitedness of HH's mid-70s jazz-funk, I don't think it is - just listen to 'Actual Proof' - but even if it was, I think that criticism would miss the point, somewhat!

As said above, jazz would be an inauthentic music for a complex age were it to revert to earlier more simple means. I've long argued for jazz as an advanced form built on accommodating those aspects of 20th century modern classicism on its own terms and principles while seeking to reclaim its African roots. This is one of my arguments against Minimalism (or minimalism) by the way - its original tenets were in their own ways revolutionary for reasons irrelevant to this discussion, but its limited scope for further development meant that it was destined to re-accommodate traditional Western means of expression and articulation.

Apologies if you already know or agree with any of the foregoing - I may have misinterpreted what you've written.

Not at all! I left much to be misunderstood - I always manage unintentionally to do this! Debates consist in clarifying as one goes along - hopefully!!!

[Joseph K]

Now spinning: Herbie Hancock - Sextant

The first tune, 'Rain Dance' is quite a bit better than I remember. I'm going to go practice my guitar shortly, I'll have to listen to the rest of this album later.

[Serial_Apologist]

It is interesting to read this debate about Fusion because the one thing that I feel has been lost in this debate is the fact that a lot of it has not stood the test of time, largely because of the fact certain generations had their own distinct keyboard sounds, bass riffs or grooves.

I think it a mistake to dismiss areas of music on the grounds of their specific soundworlds and their relation to the position of technology at any particular time.

I would also have to say that the whole Jazz-Rock / Fusion debate is really broad because the genre covered such a wide base. In it's favour, I think that the developments in the 1970s did facilitate it for jazz to branch out in all sorts of directions, many having very little to do with each other. The music by groups such as Eberhard Weber's "Colours", Miles Davis' later aggregations, Weather Report, John McLaughlin, Terje Rypdal and Chick Corea were all totally different and indeed often changed directions themselves. There was always a very wide base for fusion and I just feel this exploded exponentially in the 1980s as the ideas were absorbed in to the mainstream and the less tasteful elements were sloughed off.

Agreed.

Coming from discovering jazz in the late 1970s/ early 1980s, I have to say that I explored the music my Dad was in to and then first worked backwards to explore the original sources of inspiration and then worked forwards so that by the time I was 16 I understood where this music led up to including the contemporary jazz of the time. By that stage, it was not just Wynton Marsalis who was giving Fusion a hard time and we should not lose site of the fact that much of the criticism of that time and publications like The Wire were hostile to Fusion too. Regardless of any merits the music might have had, artists like Joe Zawinul were not getting good press in the mid-1980s. If, like me, you were exploring jazz in the 1980s, the consensus was Fusion was dated and lacked credibility. It was frequently dismissed. However, I would argue that alot of the finest jazz of that period did owe a lot to Fusion albeit the jazz element of level of music was far more in the mainstream and the commercialisation seemed to be shed for a more genuine and rewarding result. Eventually, what might have been considered to be mainstream ./ contemporary in the 1980s would probably have been labelled Fusion in the 1970s - I am thinking about musicians such as John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Steps Ahead, Pat Metheny, etc, etc.

To try and get into the jazz mindset at any period is quite important. Whilst it is true that the ways in which many 1960s British jazz musicians came into the music a-chronologically owing to the poor prior dissemination of the music's evolution up to that point, most of the new generation in the States concerned themselves with progressing from the point the music had evolved to at that stage, and it only really became seen as de rigueur to go back through the entire history crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's when (a) jazz to be seen to be suitable as a fashion accessory needed to spruce up its sartorial image; and (b) when partly in consequence jazz began being studied as course subjects on respectable university syllabuses. The teaching of jazz has (as you have elsewhere indicated) shown its resulting downsides - the semi-detached expertise-driven ethos of much of today's jazz - as much as its upsides, as you've also said - namely, the fact that treating jazz as of serious merit in bourgeois aesthetic terms is an advance in recognition/acknowledgement terms for black communities, both here and in America.

I think Fusion has never been able to 100% lose it's reputation as being somewhat inauthentic and I remember reading a review around 1990 in The Wire which argued that the whole Fusion movement in the 1970s as a whole witnessed the worse decline in the quality of jazz since Swing bands became popular in the 1940s. I think the analogy with artists like Glenn Miller is actually a very good one. Just as with this bandleader, in Fusion you can find some exceptional recordings with credible jazz at the same time as things which are truly dreadful as it reached out for a broader appeal to people who were not really music lovers. In fact, I would argue that something like "Heavy Weather" is effectively a big band record produced by a jazz rock outfit which sought to produce music with a broad palette of colours from keyboards as opposed to reeds and brass within a context of distinctive arrangements.

When I put it to Ian Carr that the use of synthesisers etc to emulate the sound and power of big bands had put a lot of big band musicians out of work, he equally ironically countered that it had given musicians the economic option of doing so! This is the penance of having to operate under capitalist market conditions, which are also insisted on by record producers' insistence on this kind of a record rather than that. The only time this didn't happen, and when head honchos offered the wherewithal for jazz (and rock) musicians to finance developing careers, the late 1960s and early '70s, came just before the capitalist class wised up on the dangers of selling to a culturally informed demographic when they really wanted dumbed down consumers!

In addition to the fact that a lot of Fusion has aged poorly, the sheer broadness of what it encompassed was something that can equally be applauded and also dismissed. There would be no Smooth Jazz without Fusion and similarly I think that artists like Alan Holdsworth are typical of people working in this broad oeuvre who would have attracted a greater share of their audience from fans of rock music who were frustrated with the limited scope of much rock music and wanted to listen to something more challenging. A lot of jazz fans would be suspicious of someone like Alan Holdsworth. You are unlikely to come to his music from listening to Charlie Christian and I am sure his core fan base will have come from a rock audience who would never have heard of John Coltrane. In the 1990s I sometimes encountered musicians from local rock bands at workshops / gigs and they were always coming to jazz through fusion as opposed to a more orthodox root. It always struck me just how venerated Jaco was amongst the local musicians who played rock. The same probably holds true to someone like Alan Holdsworth. I was totally oblivious of him in the 1980s and whilst I can appreciate the sophistication of his playing and composition from the clips Joe has posted, there is the nagging doubt as to whether his music is too far removed from more mainstream notions of jazz. It is funny that I am less reluctant to dismiss other styles of jazz where it has fused itself with other styles of music whether it is classical music or world musics whereas I feel that when it has aligned itself more to rock, it ultimately seems to either acquire a shorter shelf life or is tainted with accusations of being commercial. The argument is not so much about the musicality of fusion but maybe more about having durability. As far as opening up people's ears as to what jazz can be, I would argue that this is probably it's most enduring contribution - even if being somewhat inconsistent.

It is indeed funny that you should consider it this way, because I (for one!) don't think of Allan Holdsworth as any different from John McLaughlin, or John McL from Charlie Christian in terms of advancing the idiom into more complex thinking, in parallel to (if somewhat later than) John Coltrane and Miles Davis. It is true, I agree, that Holdsworth's cred was and probably remains among more sophisticated rock fans who were brought to jazz (where they were) through him and the likes of Pastorius; I've always respected the in-depths levels of more informed rock fans, stimulated by publications such as The Guitar, when it comes to minutiae in guitar techniques; I wish there were that level of detail and sophistication in jazz criticism.

The one element which has also been lost in this argument is the effect of Fusion of mainstream jazz in the 1970s and how musicians from the 40s, 50s an 60s had to adapt their own playing to accommodate the fashions of the times, whether that is rubbery sounding basses or the excessive use of back beats. Some musicians like Miles Davis could pick up the baton and run with this whereas I think there were far more whose music suffered as a consequence of trying to pander to the popular taste of the 1970s. This is something that has been totally ignored in this debate and maybe contributes to why a lot of jazz fans would still consider Fusion to be a bad word. The whole fusion thing destroyed a lot of jazz careers in the 1970s and you can appreciate why many felt Wynton at the very least or things such as the Loft scene were totally necessary .

Well for reasons I've explained I don't hold to the view that all Fusion by any means felt it had to pander to popular tastes in the 70s or tried to. And the Loft scene of the time was more of a "natural" [sic] outgrowth of the 1960s than was or is Wynton Marsalis, in my view.

[Jazzrook]

Pianist/composer Heiner Stadler with Tyrone Washington, Jimmy Owens, Garnett Brown, Reggie Workman & Brian Brake playing 'No Exercise' from the 2-CD set 'Brains On Fire':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=yG_DP_YlxUk

JR

[Joseph K]

Now spinning: Herbie Hancock - Sextant

The first tune, 'Rain Dance' is quite a bit better than I remember. I'm going to go practice my guitar shortly, I'll have to listen to the rest of this album later.

Well, I must say I'm pleasantly surprised about Sextant - I do have some problems with the last track which I'm currently half-way through e.g. I could do without what must be the Hum-A-Zoo (sounds like a kazoo) but I like the electronic instruments & effects. I could do with the trumpet further to the front because otherwise it takes a subsidiary role, rather than taking an actual solo, so it's like some background effect - but maybe that's the point, I guess like Weather Report at this time, there is the 'everyone solos/no one solos' sort of thing going on. You can hear almost that Herbie was heading for the jazz-funk of Head Hunters. This is quite a trippy album, I'd say it might be my favourite of this group... definitely heavy influences of On the Corner and Bitches Brew, the former of which Herbie played on. Well, the last track just finished - I found the bass riff was wearing a bit thin by the end... Personally I think Herbie better suited to the idiom of his masterpieces Head Hunters and Thrust, which are a happy medium between the more commercial stuff later on and the more experimental stuff of Sextant etc. as well featuring their own new sophistication of polyrhythm and unusual harmonic rhythm typified for me in the song 'Actual Proof'.

[elmo]

[B]Hasaan Ibn Ali playing "Lover"

This from the newly released album of solo performances. These are a fascinating set of performances and I have been playing this double album all week. This track goes some way to indicating the claim that Coltrane's "Sheets of sound" period had been strongly influenced by Trane listening to Hasaan in Philly.

https://youtu.be/51ebBCSwZ9s

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Kahil El Zabar "America the beautiful"

An album that Jazzrook would appreciate. The percussionist fronting a string ensemble that includes Tomeka Reid and also the final studio recording of Hamiet Blueitt. I am wondering just how much of the arrangements are written as the liner notes mention elements if Butch Morris -style "conduction" and there are elements where the strings, sax and trumpet sound like they are riffing over a set of changes. The music is not particularly complex and has the same kind of quaility about it like Lester Bowie's work where the music may get filed under avant garde yet it is just fun to listen to. El Zabar's infectious paying is worth the price alone. Given the fact that so much of his personailty goes in to the playing, I amstaggered that he is not better known.

[Stanfordian]

‘Heavy Soul’ – Ike Quebec
with Freddie Roach, Milt Hilton & Al Harewood
Blue Note (1961)

A favourite from my jazz collection.

[Stanfordian]

‘Mode for Joe’ – Joe Henderson
with Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Bobby Hutcherson, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter & Joe Chambers
Blue Note (1966)