Talk:Jazz fusion

message: I've reverted the reference to electric bass back to bass guitar. The main reason for the preference is that it avoids a redirect page (electric bass > bass guitar), thus conserving Wikipedia and bandwidth resources. I think it also better represents the family of instruments, tuned as a bass but modelled on the shape of guitars, that tended to be used in jazz fusion, but I think efficient use of resources is the clinching issue. Basswulf 09:52, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: As someone who prefers to think of himself as a bassist rather than a bass guitarist, in some ways I'd prefer to see the bass article called electric bass rather than bass guitar. However, that then raises issues about where acoustic bass guitars fit - probably best in that article, even though they are not necessarily electrified in any way. What you could do is make a reference to the electric bass guitar if you feel that "...electric guitar, bass guitar ..." doesn't do it justice. Basswulf 16:11, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, the penny has just dropped for me that bass guitar is, indeed, distinct from (or at least a subset of) "bass", and that saying that the new form used "bass guitar" does imply a change from more traditional jazz. And I see the dilemma Since acoustic bass guitars are fairly rare I tend to agree with you that the bass guitar article should probably have been titled electric bass.  To me this is the kind of situation redirects are made for, but given your concern about that I can live with the article the way it is, or the substitution you suggest, equally comforatably. 
Jgm 20:09, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Although the above conversation is from way back, I'd like to add my own observations - not original research 'cos it's not included in the article as such - but going on what my double bass playing friends were saying at the time. The term electric bass is possibly a more logical progression for those jazz musicians who switched from the double bass to what is now considered a bass guitar by people who may never even have seen a double bass. I remember a lot of bass players (I don't know of a single musician who would call himself or refer to a fellow band member as a bassist - the preferred term is bass player (whether double or electric), likewise piano player, not pianist; (tenor) sax player, not saxophonist, but let it pass...) who were not happy with the new development, but the disadvantages did seem to outweigh the cons and many, if not most, soon took up the electric bass. Which if nothing else, is much easier to play and to lug around! Regards, --Technopat (talk) 12:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Electric bass vs. Bass guitar

message: I have always heard the term "jazz rock" which (redirects to this page) associated with Steely Dan, who are not mentioned herein.  Misnomer? — FREAK OF NURxTURE (TALK) 09:54, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
::Jazz-rock sure is not very well established concept and the word is probably used in different contexts. It can refer to fusion music, that sounds like rock, and it is also used when speaking about jazz-influenced rock...
The term jazz rock is arguably used when speaking of bands like blood, sweat & tears, chicago.
These bands represented pop- oriented songs with a strong relation to jazz. 
The term "jazz fusion" derives from mainly jazz structures but with strong hints of rock/funk/latin. Of course, after only a few years the genre fusion was established in its own right, with different subgenres. This is one of perhaps several possible explainations for this confusion between "jazz rock" and "jazz fusion"    Tore Morten Andreassen, Norway
I think the definition of fusion has become very blurred. I see acts on the list that aren't remotely practitioners of fusion... (Steely Dan, Kenny G, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago). If a jazz newbie reads this article, they're going to come away from it being very poorly informed about "what" fusion "is". Vytal 05:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I did a quick bit of research, and some sources do make a difference between jazz fusion and "jazz rock". All Music Guide says "jazz rock" refers to either the most electrically-amplified, rock-oriented jazz fusion groups, or to the various rock performers who incorporated jazz elements into their music. So I have incorporated a "jazz rock" section in the article that draws this distinction. Now Steely Dan is in the article! : )  ...OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 11:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia has a policy of not using original research. Just because you consider king crimson fusion doen't mean everyone on wikipedia will agree with you. And even if KC is fusion, it wasnt really a major part of the fusion movement (KC is known for progressive rock, not fusion). So Im taking out your comments. 68.193.53.233 04:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Jazz-rock" and "Fusion" are related, but not synonymous.  They have different origins, different practitioners, different outcomes, and different audiences.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 00:39, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Difference between "Jazz Rock" and "jazz fusion"

message: I'm sure that for the class of musicians (like me) which have been playing modern Jazz/ Fusion/ Jazz rock, it is quite clear what fusion usually is understood to be, probably most notably Jimi Hendrix and Weather Report (though that wouldn't always be rock) as important early exponents, and jazz rock meaning simply jazz and rock fused, so jazz things in a rock way or the other way around, fairly simple. House and hiphop type of music normally wouldn't be called Jazz Rock because usually that is neither rock nor Jazz...!
--Theo Verelst
::Yeah, but Hendrix made just few jazz-rock pieces (south saturn delta, rainy day dream away ...and... uhm... any more?). And even in those pieces he plays in quite bluesy manner instead of using jazz scales. --anon
::On Jimi Hendrix - I think many would agree that most of the musical material on the 1970 live album under the band name, A Band of Gypsies, influenced the so-called Jazz-Rock music in a big way. Miles Davis is said to have been "blown away" after hearing, Machine Gun, off that record. Songs like The Power of Love also  incorporation complex odd time signatures. The album in general influence is said to have influenced many rock and jazz musicians of the time. The Budzone guy 17:37, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  Weather report was many things, but the last thing I would call them is "progressive rock band". :) They started off in the "fusion"-style that Zawinul and Shorter invented together with Miles Davis, then became more futuristic and ethnic sounding and also more latin and funk oriented (the way jazz muscians play funk). Around 1980 they were almost pure jazz again, playing several swing and latin tunes, albeit with their trademark futuristic and ethnic elements still present. The rock- and R&B-elements were sparse and mainly contributed by Pastorius on a few tracks. 94.245.25.99 (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  def? 

message: How can the genres of jazz fusion and smooth jazz be seperated? For example, albums like "The Pat Metheny Group" do have some hints of smooth jazz, such as the very repetive motifs and lack of complex improv. --65.100.150.4 21:37, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There are always problems while separating musical genres that are close to each other. Of course you may always find a stuff that is "between" two genres or belongs to both of them at once. Or you may find an album that has many different styles. I think that the complexity of improvisation is not the fact that distinguishes fusion and smooth jazz. The essential feature of smooth jazz is that it has a "smooth" production and also compositions tend to be "smooth" - though this is not easy thing to describe. If you are talking about Pat Metheny Group's very first album, I think it falls quite clearly into jazz-rock category (that is subgenre of fusion) but you may be right that the album has some "smooth" elements too. Anyway, the album is not produced very smoothly but has  mostly that kind of jazz-rock feel (no additional background synths, vocal dubs, strings etc.). Some latter Pat Metheny Group's albums such as Still Life (Talkin') have some tracks that have very "smooth" sound. Of course, there hardly are any objective methods to distinguish genres that are close to each other in every case. --128.214.205.5 09:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smooth Jazz 

message: Are youtube -links good idea? They may break copyrights (about which I do not personally care about so much, but which is against Wikipedia's rules) and those files in youtube come and go so we should keep constantly monitoring whether they are working or not. --128.214.205.4 13:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many artists are now using YouTube and other sources to promote their work, and YouTube has a policy of removing any work that is copyrighted for which they receive a legitimate complaint.  It is necessary to monitor the links and edit/remove/update as needed for any linked content, and I prefer to go to other sources than YouTube when possible that may offer a better chance of permanence.  That being said, especially when it comes to music, etc., those links are extremely valuable in providing persons with actual samples of real music/video, and I am personally not a fan of the :30 ogg samples around in Beta which are far too limited in comparsion.  Tvccs 00:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And let me add...for the record...there was a link here that YouTube recently pulled for such a complaint I had to replace...so it's not like they're ignoring copyright.  I expect the Google purchase will only increase vigilance/compliance in that area as well.  Tvccs 19:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: YOUTUBE

message: I took a bet that Coryell's 11th house was not too obscure for mention (1 of their albums is one of my 26 favorite albums of all time), and the bet payed off.  There is an Article about this band, and I created a link to such, @it's first mention.  This was an important early fusion band. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thaddeus Slamp (talk • contribs) 03:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  11th house linked (my minor change) 

message: made the word fusion into a link, and added genre of music to the disambiguation page.Thaddeus Slamp 00:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  minor change 

message: Shouldn't the album "Focus" by Cynic be added to the album list. It's Jazz Fusion mixed with death metal, probably one of the most noteworthy examples of that hybrid
Or albums by Atheist for that matter
Yes they would be,they fuse great metal with melodic jazzy runs and scales.They don't lean into the blues box that much at all and it's not totally classical either.So therefore with jazzy interludes and death metal they would be fusion/metal.Same goes for death(92 and above).Just because there isnt trumpet's and saxophone's doesnt mean its not jazz.Whoever says atheist doesnt base alot of there structure on jazz is a complete dolt.Listen to elements.Both cynic albums are obvious contenders to that scene.
:Here's my word as a complete dolt :)  First, I'm not familiar with either Cynic or Atheist but I do enjoy some instrumental tech death (Blotted Science) and some much lesser-known highly mathy djent.  If you'd genuinely like to know whether your fave prog metal genuinely counts as a fusion of metal and jazz (rather than merely showing influences of jazz), you need to interrogate the music on a key point:
:What's the role of improvisation?  Are there solos, but is it just the guitar player over a totally rehearsed and rigid rhythm section?  If so, it doesn't qualify as fusion.  
:You can avoid both "leaning into the blues box" and being "totally classical" without going anywhere near jazz.  "Jazzy" is not jazz.  The use of certain scales and chords is not jazz.  (Ragtime piano music sounds "jazzy" to most people, but it isn't jazz because it's entirely notated with no space for improvisation and it requires little rhythmic interpretation).
:Jazz is not defined by structure.  It's defined by improvisation.
:Snardbafulator (talk) 05:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Moreover, the question behind this question is whether "Jazz fusion" is a description (in which case it's fair to argue about what new things meet the description), or a genre (in which case things springing from other genres like death metal can't fit by definition).  In a world where, after thirty-some years of "Fusion" still mostly means Bitches Brew to jazz fans, while hundreds of interesting fusions of music have not been considered part of the genre, I'd say the latter.  It's not unlike "alternative music" most of which is actually mainstream. Jgm (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Is progressive metal a type of jazz fusion?

message: Hi, Could editors and contributors please help find reviews from reputable, credible reviewers that support the claim that Andy Summers' (ex-Police) albums Charming Snakes (1990) and World Gone Strange (1991) are notable, influential jazz fusion albums? If we cannot find reviews and comments by prominent jazz fusion music critics, I argue that they should be taken out of the "Influential albums" list.Nazamo 15:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found an Allmusic.com review of  World Gone Strange, which gave it 2 out of 5 stars (http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jxfqxqugldke). Allmusic.com gave Charming Snakes 3 out of 5 stars. So far, the reviews do not suggest that the Summers' albums should be kept alongside Tribal Tech, Alain Caron, and the others in the 1990s. I am still waiting for any supporters of the Summers' albums to post reviews here...Nazamo 20:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The word "influential" is relative and debatable, which is why I never use it and why it has no place in Wikipedia. But it's easy to find articles, radio shows, TV shows, Youtube clips, etc. about Andy Summers and jazz. You can also try his autobiography. I don't consider him one of the pioneers of fusion like Miles Davis, Weather Report, Return to Forever, or Larry Coryell. For one reason, during the jazz fusion decade of the 1970s, he wasn't playing jazz fusion. He was studying classical guitar in California and giving lessons so he could make a living. Around 1976 or '77 he met Sting and Stewart Copeland and The Police took off. When he got around to making solo albums, fusion had already morphed into other things. Some of his albums qualify as fusion, in particular Charming Snakes (1990), World Gone Strange (1991), The Last Dance of Mr. X (1997), and Earth + Sky (2003). Green Chimneys (1999) is a tribute to Monk and Peggy's Blue Skylight (2000) is a tribute to Mingus. Those albums contain jazz fusion and straight jazz. Among the musicians accompanying him were Victor Bailey, John Beasley, Gregg Bissonette, Randy Brecker, Vinnie Colauita,  Eliane Elias, Peter Erskine, Bill Evans (the saxophonist), Joey De Francesco, Herbie Hancock, Darryl Jones, Tony Levin, Mike Mainieri (who produced World Gone Strange), and Chad Wackerman. All of them have jazz and jazz fusion cred.Vmavanti (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Andy Summers - Charming Snakes (1990), World Gone Strange (1991)  

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:HymnoftheSeventhGalaxy.jpg

message: I think it's pretty clear that this section has pangs of untidiness, unprofessionalism, and irrelevance throughout. Irrelevance is due to the fact that this is, after all, an article about Jazz Fusion, not Miles Davis. While it might be meaningful to highlight some of his previous work just to emphasize his role as a pioneer, we really don't need to get as biographical as the article does. The aforementioned unprofessionalism is present at numerous spots, most visibly by, "this group pushed the limits of freedom and made some fiery jazz!" and "...made a series of records that I haven't heard." In addition, McLaughlin's name is misspelled throughout. At times, the sense of chronology that this entire article intends to promote is obscured.
I'll take a stab at fixing this, but I figured I'd leave something here first. --Ak47mustang (talk) 21:02, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Roots of Fusion Section

message: I'm no expert on Fusion Jazz....but i think that it is plainly obvious that Hendrix had a direct and profound influence on many of these guitarists. That, I believe, can be easily verified and cited. Also it is plainly obvious that Hendrix pioneered incorporating electronic effects into music. And, it *is* well documented that Miles Davis regarded Hendrix as a direct influence on his music around the same time that he was pioneering fusion jazz. I think a little more research needs to be done to give this monumental guitarist and musician his due credit. People like John Mclaughlin I'm sure would not hesitate to put Hendrix at the top of his list of influences. Hendrix embodied the essence and spirit of this music and I would be willing to put my next paycheck on the line that many of the pioneers of fusion jazz would emphatically agree. I beg one of you wiki gurus to take this into consideration and make the appropriate changes to this article optic_age 23:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Need Commentary on Hendrix Influence

message: I’ve editing the opening of the article to use the term fusion—though I understand why the article at fusion music is something else, I think most music listeners understand “fusion” to be something jazz + rock, and it seems to be the term fans use to refer to the genre. —Wiki Wikardo 02:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  “Fusion” 

message: Greetings All, Somewhere along this very confusing line there was a moment (around the mid-to-late 70s) when musicians themselves - not the music press (too heavily into fighting each other to see who could discover yet another punk group, but that's for another day) - were referring to crossover or crossover jazz. Any feedback? Cheers!--Technopat (talk) 09:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: PS. The reason I mention this is 'cos the Crossover (music) only makes a passing reference to jazz fusion.--Technopat (talk) 10:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More confusion... 

message: Hi I'm not used on the technical way in  Creating a new section or sub section on a wikipedia article 
But I may I tel you about the need of creating the sub section 
Notable Books on Jazz fusion  
what I'd like to be put in is :
* Jazz Rock Fusion " The People The Music ", Julie Coryell et Laura Friedman, Éd. Hal Leonard
* Jazz Rock A History , Stuart Nicholson, Éd. Canongate
* La vie Extraordinaire et tragique de Jaco Pastorius, Bill Milkowski, Éd. In Folio
* Jazz Hot Encyclopédie " Fusion ", Guy Reynard, Éd. de L'instant
* Power, Passion and Beauty - The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra, Walter Kolosky, Éd. Abstract Logix Books
* Weather Report - Une Histoire du Jazz Electrique, Christophe Delbrouck, Éd. Le Mot et le Reste, 
INCLUDING FRENCH OR NON ENGLISH WRITTEN BOOKS IN THIS SECTION WOULD BE A KIND OF MARK OF OPEN MIND  WHAT I MEAN IS THAT THERE ARE ALSO REVIEWERS OR MUSICIANS OR CRITICTS INTRESTED IN JAZZ FUSION OUTSIDE OF THE STATES ALTHOUGH JAZZ ROCK FUSION IS TO BE BORN IN THE STATES ( PS ZAWINUL WAS AUSTRIAN AND JAN HAMMER WAS TSCHECK BORN  AND WHAT ABOUT MC LAUGHLING ????? )  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.220.38.107 (talk) 11:59, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Books

message: The smooth jazz section of this article clearly contradicts with the smooth jazz article, primarily in the discussion of origins.  Smooth jazz (as a genre, not a radio format) existed well before the 1980s; considering the that certain smooth jazz hits (such as George Benson's Breezin' or Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good) acheived popularity well before the rise of the smooth jazz radio format.  Kenny G did not invent smooth jazz. ANDROS1337 22:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction with smooth jazz article 

message: I think Frank Zappa and his album Hot Rats from 1969 deserves a mention in this article, as it's definitely an early example of combining jazz-style improvisation and arrangements with the instrumentation and "rawness" of rock music. And there's no question about Zappa's status as a jazz artist, since he was (posthumously) introduced into the jazz hall of fame in 1994. 217.208.151.124 (talk) 16:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frank Zappa and his Hot Rats album 

message: The sources in this article are excellent.  The problem is, you aren't following what they're saying.  Julie Coryell's book is called "Jazz Rock Fusion" for a reason.  The central problem here is "Jazz Fusion" is a neologism coined by some rock critic some 20 years ago to describe music some 20 years older than that.  It's a case study in what Frank Zappa identified as continually reiterating the original mistakes of the Ancient Incompetents.
"Jazz Fusion" is a meaningless term.  Fusion with what?  Jazz has fused with Indian music (Shakti), classical (Third Stream), World Music (Oregon, Paul Winter Consort) and doubtless other diverse musical forms as well.  What you mean by it is the original term, "jazz-rock fusion," which was coined specifically for the jazz musicians who played with and were inspired by Miles Davis to get into electric instruments.  You also talk about "jazz rock" which is okay, but you've got to bear in mind that this term originally meant the rock musicians who began to get into playing jazz (e.g. Zappa, Soft Machine).  These two groups of musicians have some overlap (e.g. Allan Holdsworth) but there's a fundamental difference in having a primarily jazz background and a primarily rock background.  Your sources are good on this except for AllMusic, which is never good to use for meta-analysis.  "Jazz rock" referred to rock musicians, not the wildest of the jazz musicians, which would have to include Mahavishnu Orchestra, probably the single most publicly-identified "jazz-rock fusion" band of all time.
Some people want to include more pop artists in this category, like Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Van Morrison, Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell.  I'd caution against this.  Not to get all Wynton Marsalis on ya or anything, but genuinely playing jazz has some requirements.  It can't just sound "jazzy" or use jazz instrumentation.  "Moondance" is blue-eyed R&B, not jazz.  Steely Dan used some interesting chords, but so do Hollywood film scores.  Jazz requires a certain rhythmic approach that's not strictly notatable (e.g. "swing").  It also requires room for interactive improvisation, not just a slot in an arrangement for an overdubbed guitar solo.  You're better off citing these guys with a separate page for strongly jazz-influenced pop and rock musicians.  Gentle Giant didn't play "jazz" because they had a sax.  You don't want to render the term meaningless.
I'm not as familiar with the newer prog metal mentioned in this article as I should be, but I'd also caution against turning "fusion" into a meaningless buzzword.  News Flash:  A young musician can be incredibly skilled and still not call things by their proper names.  If you're impressed with the complexities of a style (and I have to admit, the idea of "playing in five different tempos at once" is a new one one me, and probably something that never occured to either Eliott Carter or Conlon Nancarrow) and work to practice until your fingers are about to fall off for the purpose of playing it note-for-note exactly, you're probably not practicing anything that resembles jazz, fused or otherwise.  (If you practice playing scales over a chord progression with the idea of doing it differently every time, then you're practicing jazz).  What you're practicing is a form of highly arranged progressive rock, and that's completely awesome in its own right.  It's just not "fusion."
My main (entirely well-meant) suggestion:  Change the article's title to "Jazz Rock," which is a general enough term to encompass both jazz rock fusion played by jazzers and jazz rock played by rockers, then disambiguate in the article as you did (mostly) successfully.  Otherwise, you could split the article into "Jazz-Rock Fusion," which deals with the Miles alums, Weather Report and then gets into Creed Taylor and "smooth jazz" down the line (since those guys are nearly all legit jazz musicians), and "Jazz-Rock," which would touch on Zappa, Soft Machine, the rest of the British jazz-rock contingent and then maybe some genuinely improvising jazz metal.
Just bear in mind that to be worthy of the name, jazz in whatever mixture with rock requires improvisation and rhythmically flexible group interaction.
Snardbafulator (talk) 11:46, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Very well said.  I agree with pretty much everything you say, although I think a case can be made for a separation between "jazz-rock" (musicians who came towards jazz from a primarily rock tradition) and "fusion" (musicians who came towards rock -- or world music, or whatever -- from a primarily jazz tradition).  I was puzzled, for example, to find no mention of Paul Winter or Oregon in this article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 01:27, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV Pushing in Article Title 

message: I'm tweaking the first sentence, based on the following:
Odd time signatures didn't come from jazz, as odd meter in jazz was a distinctly fringe preoccupation at that time.  One of the major jazz critics of the 50s (Leonard Feather?) wrote a famous polemic in Down Beat proclaiming that any music not in 4/4 couldn't possibly be jazz (because anything not in common time couldn't swing).  Despite the best efforts of Lenny Tristano, Dave Brubeck, Max Roach and Don Ellis, this was the majority view in the jazz world through the 60s.  The two most significant jazz musicians of that period, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, didn't use odd meter at all.
Odd (or more properly, additive) meter arose in jazz from the same wellspring that gave it to the early 20th-century classical world: ethnomusicology.  "Blue Rondo" is "a la Turk" for a reason.  Don Ellis famously hung around the UCLA Ethnomusicology Department to develop techniques to teach his West Coast big band how to feel extended meter.  John McLaughlin, the most renowed odd meter jockey of the jazz-rock fusion movement, derived his from Indian talas.
"Extended compositions" weren't a preoccupation of post-Big Band Era jazz, either, and in any case, is not a defining characteristic of jazz.  I'm changing "long improvisations" to "long group improvisations" because that's what sets jazz jamming apart from rock jamming.
The Wikipedia Progressive Rock Project considers The Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock to be an unreliable source for biographical info.  It's also an unreliable source for historical musical analysis.
I will wince and bite my tongue and do my best to ignore the retroactive neologism "jazz fusion."  That's an argument for a later time.
Snardbafulator (talk) 07:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit #1 

message: In the Jazz Rock section, second graf, I removed the inserted word "fusion" in brackets from the AllMusic quote, for several reasons.
First, because it added exactly nothing to the meaning of the quote.  Secondly, because whether or not it's against Wikipedia policy to insert words into quotes to add a meaning not already there (and I'm sure it is), it's doubtless unethical regardless.  You do this to clarify the anteceedent to a pronoun or something equally free of controversy.  You do not do this to make a quote say what you want it to say, in this case to make a source use a genre label it may not choose to apply to the music it's characterizing.  It is the thesis of this article's author that "jazz fusion" is a label fit for the Miles Davis alumni whose music was first described universally as "jazz-rock fusion," and that consequently John McLaughlin somehow exists in the same genre-defined musical universe as Kenny G. Am I the only one who thinks this is completely insane?
When the terminology changed and critics began dropping the "jazz-rock" from "fusion" is also around the time the music itself began changing, largely as a reaction to the contracting economy of the late 70s but also due to critical brickbats being tossed at music that seemed to stress virtuosity for its own sake.  The "jazz-rock fusion" of the early 70s has an entirely different set of musical values than the "fusion" (or "jazz fusion" if you want to make a half-assed attempt at being precise) that began emerging in the 80s.  And the amount of genuinely progressive players in this jazz-rock style who absolutely despise both the term "fusion" and the sort of music it labels is notorious (ask Allan Holdsworth, for one).  It's sort of like asking King Crimson to exist in the same genre with The Knack.  But we don't do that, do we.  We have a progressive rock genre for Crimson and an entirely different pop rock genre for The Knack.  We don't judge the one by the same criteria we'd use for the other.  That's why this article is veritably screaming to be disambiguated into separate genres.
Snardbafulator (talk) 09:46, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit #2 

message: I'm sticking this in a new section to increase the chance it'll be noticed.  First, really really great discussion; both you guys are amazingly knowledgable.  It also seems to help me make my point about the nature of "jazz fusion" as a fundamentally incoherent genre label.  Tvccs seems to be concerned that first, most of the first generation of "fusion" players stopped playing "that music" starting around the 80s, and also seems to be more willing to define "fusion" as a progressive, musically adverturous, non-commercial music style.  I say bravo to his advocacy of Allan Holdsworth and Scott Henderson and I strongly agree.  I share his goal of lending support to musicians who are staking their careers on trying to keep a challenging musical ideal alive and not just staying afloat or remaining "relevant" in a changing marketplace.
But the exclusionary approach may not be appropriate for the term "jazz fusion."  Tvccs seems willing to deny or de-emphasize that label not just for Yellowjackets and Joe Zawinul, but for Bill Frisell and John Scofield as well  that they "aren't really playing jazz fusion."  And this is a difficult argument to make, not only considering that the 'Jackets's bass player Jimmy Haslip has just toured with Allan Holdsworth and Alan Pasqua (and Chad Wackerman) in the Tony Williams memorial project and that the musicians move fluidly between the more commercial and more adventurous worlds.  There's a definite genetic linkage there, which extends to the likes of Tom Scott and Steve Gadd for more commercial music still.  The linkage fundamentally has to do with all of them possessing legitmate jazz chops (which are superior to rock chops).
The problem could be solved if there was a recognized genre called "progressive jazz fusion" where we could include not only the Miles alums from the 70s, but also Zappa, Soft Machine and some of the even more freewheeling electric improvisers (like Derek Bailey and Fred Frith) from that heady period along with the later innovators like David Torn and HoBoLeMa and save "jazz fusion" for the more commercial exemplars, or those who the idea of "fusion" with jazz implies fusion with funk or R&B or World Music rather than with progressive/avant rock.  Of course we can't do that, because that would entail making up a genre without citing sources and that's not done on Wikipedia.  But it sure would be logical.
What the three of us seem to agree on is that the music definitely changed by the 80s and what went on to become widely known as "fusion" or "jazz fusion" past that point winds up orphaning the likes of Holdsworth and Henderson genre-wise.  To merely include more examples of the decidedly un-smooth stuff (and that would of course entail the Ornette Coleman-tinged strain of Roland Shannon Jackson, James Blood Ulmer and David Fiuczynski) would be to fight a more-or-less losing battle in a genre as wide-open as "jazz fusion" because you'll always find more reliable sourcing for the more commercial acts.  To attempt to contrast "jazz fusion" with "smooth jazz" isn't entirely tenable either, because "smooth jazz," beyond being a marketing category created in the late 80s, has existed in jazz proper since at least Paul Whiteman's 1925 premiere of Rhapsody in Blue (jazz didn't become a self-consciously un-mainstream art music until the invention of bebop).  The same musicians who use their mind-boggling chops to play with Holdsworth also play straight-ahead "jazz fusion."
I'm not sure precisely how we solve this problem.  I'd personally solve it for Holdsworth by calling his work with Williams and Ponty "jazz-rock fusion," his stuff with Soft Machine "jazz rock," his stuff with Bruford, UK and I.O.U. progressive rock, most of his solo stuff deeply jazz-influenced progrock and his later albums None Too Soon and The Sixteen Men of Tain straight-ahead jazz.  There is no single genre for it and I don't think Wikipedia is the right place to address that issue.
We can take a good stab at solving it, though, for the music that's entered history.  I have two suggestions.  The stronger one is to create a separate page for "jazz-rock fusion" for the first generation of music played by the Miles alums and jazz musicians who took up rock instruments.  "Jazz fusion" didn't become a term of common critical parlance until decades later.  "Jazz-rock fusion" can be easily sorced, not only in Down Beat and Julie Coryell's book "Jazz Rock Fusion," but also in the early 70s rock press available for sourcing like Rolling Stone.  This naturally disambiguates from the more commercial "fusion" that followed, because there were no specialized radio stations playing it.  It's more culturally aligned with progressive rock than jazz (it alienated many jazz fans at the time) and was aired by DJs who also played progrock. In there, you could also talk about the more adventurous strains of jazz rock either played by rock musicians or the more jazz-trained musicians who came out of the 60s British blues boom: Soft Machine, Nucleus, Isotope, (one aspect of) Hatfield and the North, Delivery, etc. But because "jazz rock" has also been sourced to include rock and pop acts who used jazz arrangement or motific influences, it may be better to also create a separate page for "jazz rock" to talk about all of it.
The jazz rock section here is pretty much okay, but in order to create an article for jazz-rock fusion, I'd need to edit this article and separate out the Miles alums with a link to the jazz-rock fusion article.  That would be serious editing and I don't want to do that until I get some feedback from some of the folks who put so much time into working on this article.  I'm also going to make this proposal to both the Jazz Project editors and the Music Genre Task Force.
So what say you?  Do I sound like I'm on the right track here, or what?
Snardbafulator (talk) 17:30, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion between IP Helsinki Guy and Tvccs 

message: :...just because Holdsworth was mentioned earlier didn't mean it wasn't important to introduce him more thoroughly in the later section - it's the SynthAxe that really opened up his composing.
I'm going to have to comment on this, Tvccs, because I'm something of a Holdsworth completist and have read every Holdsworth interview I've found on the net.  I think it's more accurate to say that his digital delay pedal and rack (which he still uses) "really opened up his composing" and you can hear that beginning with the I.O.U. album.
Because of the SynthAxe's fret spacing (necessitated by the electronics), Holdsworth finds it much harder to voice certain chords and has had to work around that.  I think what you can say is that the SynthAxe opened up his linear ideas, because he can program a fifths tuning across six strings, something which is physically impossible on a guitar, which I think is apparent on the head melody of "Non-Brewed Condiment."  It gave him a new palette of course, and also allowed him to do what he always wanted to, which is to control sustain without distortion.  But if you'll listen to "Pud Wud" from Then!, where Steve Hunt plays the SynthAxe Oberheim patches on keyboard, there's not a substantial structural difference.
Snardbafulator (talk) 20:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  A minor dissent ... 

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thread_title: File:Chick Corea Spain.ogg Nominated for Deletion

message: The Scaruffi fusion history is just imaginary on his part.  Out of Sight And Sound is jazz musicians playing straight ahead flower-power rock in order to make money.  Zero jazz content.   Conversely, Duster is entirely jazz with free jazz and blues jazz elements, zero rock.  Duster has riffs and sounds that you would later hear in the 70s fusion albums, but that doesn't make it fusion.
Fusion started with Miles Davis.  The earlier stuff listed is "Captain Hindsight" talking.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.209.221.166 (talk) 00:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: This isn't completely accurate. For example, in Brian Priestley's "Charlie Parker and Popular Music" in Annual Review of Jazz Studies 14 (2009), he writes, "[Parker] might even be seen quite legitimately as a precursor of what is now called 'fusion' music." In the jazz timeline, be-bop is not a direct precursor, but certain aspects of jazz that were original to be-bop were crucial to the subsequent development of fusion. You can see that simply by following Miles Davis from one genre to the other; and also in the influence of Coltrane on not just horn players, but also fusion guitarists and keyboardists. As jazz is cited as a precursor to fusion, and be-bop is a type of jazz, I'm not sure it's worth reverting the edit excising be-bop from the list; but I don't see how jazz gets to fusion without be-bop, so I thought I'd offer this up for consideration. Pstoller (talk) 23:46, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "no sources describe bebop as a precursor" 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Because I think the definition of things is important I want to objective again to calling this page jazz fusion. Fusion is by definition a fusion of jazz and rock. Misnaming this important form of music dumbs it down. The notion of calling it jazz fusion is straight out of the Department of Redundancy Department. It's not just my opinion. http://www.jazzinamerica.org/LessonPlan/8/7/213
Simply take "Jazz fusion (also known as fusion)" and flip it. Jackhammer111 (talk) 09:18, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: "Fusion is by definition a fusion of jazz and rock." Not really, this is very reductive, it may have meant that, to some music journalists, for a short period in the late 60s/early 70s - when many jazz musicians embraced electric instruments for the first time - but to say that this is what it means in 2018 ignores the fact that blues, RnB, soul, funk (+hip-hop and DnB) and also Latin, African, Indian music etc. have all played a part in the evolution of "jazz fusion." Yes, "fusion" is the word we use colloquially, but we don't mean "jazz rock" by it.Acousmana (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Usually it does still mean rock and jazz. If you say it can be combined with anything, then you end up with no definition. A word that changes all the time can't be defined. A lot of what you have today is smooth jazz, something like pop ballads without lyrics, and what is called contemporary R&B. Musicians can combine anything they want, but that doesn't make it a new genre or a form of fusion. Inventing names for genres has gotten out of control. What might seem new, especially to a young person, really isn't. Most music falls under pop or rock. This is especially true when you look at the structure (verse chorus) and chords (G, C, D) of many songs in many genres.Vmavanti (talk) 22:28, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  the definition of things

message: I am almost sorry to have to ask – and definitely glad that I could not find this expression anywhere on the discussion-page –, but where does that come from, now? Bear with me, I am not a native English speaker and acknowledge differences in our approaches across continents and cultures ... but the “all-female“ .*-Band “Isis” was just fine as a Jazz-Rock or Fusion-Band. Why do we need “Horn-Rock” (and out of a sudden, for me)?More clearly: Who needs Horn-Rock when it links to Jazz Fusion anyway? TIA Psycho Chicken (talk) 06:35, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horn-Rock  

message: Does anybody else think that this article needs to be restructured? It starts with a history section which ends in the 1970s, then continues to inspirations, then it describes jazz rock, jazz metal, smooth jazz, other styles, and then it again returns to describe its influence on rock music. The current developments section is completely absent. Thoughts? Λeternus (talk) 09:40, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The "Inspirations" section's placement didn't make sense. In and of itself, the section and its ideas might have use somewhere, but not there. I relocated this section to the talk page.OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 17:51, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weird structure 

message: This section doesn't fit in where it was located.  It is like a standalone intro to jazz and fusion histor. OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 17:48, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inspirations section relocated here for discussion  

message: Jazz fusion formed in the late 1960s when musicians combined styles such as jazz, funk, rock, and R&B (rhythm and blues). It has been popularized by artists like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams,  Allan Holdsworth,    Billy Cobham and John McLaughlin along with many other legends in the jazz world. Jazz and rock music have played an integral part in society throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Jazz populated the airwaves throughout the 1940s and 1950s with artists like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz of the 1940s was commonly referred to as bebop, which is characterized by fast tempo, complex chord progressions, and numerous key changes. In 1959 the breakthrough jazz record Kind of Blue was recorded by the great Miles Davis. This record has been described as the "one of the greatest jazz records of all time". Davis recorded it with pianist Bill Evans, saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. This was the first modal jazz record and shaped the sound for jazz of the 1960s and 1970s. For this record Miles Davis brought sketches to the studio with no sheet music, just telling the musicians to play what they feel and listen to each other. While the record was improvised and loosely sketched, it has sold millions of copies and has become a remarkable staple in the jazz community. Some modal jazz and/or jazz fusion records that followed were Bitches Brew (1970), Head Hunters (1973), Birds of Fire(1972), and In a Silent Way(1969). OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 17:48, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Inspirations

message: How is there no mention of Weather Report on here? I believe most music historians consider them one of the most influential bands of the genre. 2610:130:110:A:394B:5B02:907B:AF42 (talk) 11:47, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a paragraph on Weather Report, which was removed in this edit in February 2019. The edit summary concern was lack of explicit sources; it should be possible to find appropriate sources in order to reference and restore something like that former paragraph. AllyD (talk) 14:23, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weather Report 

message: I feel that material from this section should be moved to "Jazz rock" and "Jazz metal" sections respectively, since most of the time they are describing same things. For example, some of the bands who blend jazz with heavy metal are mentioned in "Jazz metal" section, and some are mentioned in "Influence on rock music" section. Λeternus (talk) 13:36, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Influence on rock music