Hunt for jazz-numetal fusion!

There are only a handful of jazz rock fusion albums I've come across, which I'll be tempted to suggest had some variants of metal in them:

Fire Merchants: Landlords Of Atlantis - which might in places also be called jazz-grunge rock.

Shaun Baxter: Jazz Metal (Baxter last appeared in Carl Palmer's band about two years ago - otherwise I thing he teaches in a music college in London)

 

There is the guitar-free Shining Path and Jonas Hellborg Group, with No Other World and e respectively - line-ups are almost identical, but Shining Path play Hammond-lead death thrash metal while  JHG play heavy Hammond-lead jazz rock (heavier than Niacin, who are recommended as another guitar-free heavy fusion band).

An obscure jazz rock album release about ten years ago in Austria,  Conrad Schrenk's Extravaganza: Save The Robots - there are an increasing number of folk (as the word get passed along the grapevine) thinking this deleted record may have been the best jazz rock fusion album of the last decade. Heavy guitar by Schrenk  - Steve Vai with jazz chords - brass rock backing (echoes of Tower of Power and somethimes early Chicago)

Specifically Mastermind's Excelsior has  a heavy Mahavishnu Orchestra sound about it - The 80's Japanese band Kennedy, Live album goes further and takes Mahavishnu Orchestra's Birds Of Fire making it sound very heavy.

Ian Gillan immediately after leaving Deep Purple for the first time, formed Gillan and their early albums have a distinct heavy jazz rock feel about them, e.g. Scarabus, Clear Turbulence, Live At Budakan - in part this down to the freedom Gillan gave his musicians, at least one of whom has subsequently carved a career in jazz/jazz fusion, i.e. Mark Nauseef .

About 6 months I got sent a promo of a Canadian band, who have deliberately set out to mix heavy rock guitar with jazz rock (even have a Miles Davis pretender on trumpet) - but my memory fails me to their name, and I'm not at home to pull the CD of the shelf.

 

Well two handfuls.......................

 

Tommy Bolin Maybe?

None are the band I have in mind but Yessssss getting somewhere--

Dick you really know your jazz fusion!

- Couldnt find an audio sample on the net of Fire Merchants that worked with my linux browser but Phil C himself is coming to a concert next month where I live,  I'll crash backstage and ask him to track down his old guitar friend from brand x for me.

- Shaun Baxter: exactly what I'm trying to get away from! Hairband ;), 80's style shredding & filtering. Really pro engineered though.

- JHG on the funky bass side -- red hot chili peppers 90's must've been listening to them too much

- Conrad Schrenk also isnt anywhere near what I was originally after but nonetheless a goldmine! Some big happy brass. Now that I heard all the tracks I know why people kudo it as you say. I got the whole album for free at http://omd.musicnavigator.org (all the tracks legal promo download one by one at $0).

Cath after looking through it I think ur last link is actually the canadian band Dick got the promo for... They've got their own take on this kind of fusion, still need to master their art but IMO lots of progress from album 1 to 2. Their closest to the track I heard on the radio was http://www.jazzwaves.com/mp3/HMJC-Track4.mp3 -- just imagine replacing the prog Piano with  distorted low ptch double guitars with very low harmonics. I think their newest is worth the $ though. Cath you've gotten us closest so far to the genre I got in mind

Always hungry for more progworld, keepem coming!!

GoldenSpiral wrote: try Dave Martone - A Demon's Dream

He could be it. There are some samples for a different album at

http://www.guitar9.com/shutup.html

AghoraPhobic wrote: - Conrad Schrenk also isnt anywhere near what I was originally after but nonetheless a goldmine! Some big happy brass. Now that I heard all the tracks I know why people kudo it as you say. I got the whole album for free at http://omd.musicnavigator.org (all the tracks legal promo download one by one at $0).

I glad you nailed this one so quickly, it has  been deleted for a long time and so very elusive to find as a legitimate version - word of mouth praise has been largely spread with bootleg versions. 666 and 777 tracks are my favourite tunes - and the lift from Fawlty Towers (an odd choice of soundtrack sample for an Austrian band), which later forms the basis for a short music interlude.  Conrad Schrenk is a rather strange character - told this album had taken off in the jazz fusion underground in the USA,  he was not keen to have it reissued (it might be different now). However, he made a follow up  to Save The Robots about 4 years ago - I received a white label version, which with it post-production must have cost Schrenk something, but he still hasn't released it!?

I'm not sure what you mean by numetal - a guitar sound like Limp Bizkit, or simply a modern 90s type of sound?

How about "Massacre"? They have a very heavy guitar.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: I'm not sure what you mean by numetal - a guitar sound like Limp Bizkit, or simply a modern 90s type of sound?

Yes thaty's why I quoted limp bizkit... my def of numetal (and there are many different ones I know) is guitars that have the new 2000-later filters (eg aural exciters) applied to them & post production techniques where u have quite a bit of reverb and then in line with the beat you put in a superfast noisegate once in a while -- otherwise u get good ol 90s grunge. I know it's hard 2 describe the sound, because the song i heard had no lyrics (so i cant tell u doom or rap etc)

anyway i suppose there would b a big market for this b/c it catches all those people entering 25-30 age range (wanting to explore more deeper softer sides of metal fusions but too young to worship the old jazz greats) so anyone in a band here get experimenting!!!!!!!!!!

Dick Heath wrote: AghoraPhobic wrote: Ron Thal tried to get jazzophiles into his fanbase back with "R2" on  9-11, although the rhythms in this song were  more  prog-Bossanova than usa jazz and his [otherwise not badly played] guitar sonics were really your standard Jazz-rock-fusion type than harder metal like his tracks on other albums http://www.bumblefoot.com/artist/multimedia/multimedia.htm Have only his Hermit - I can't play the blues, really gets me - but I wouldn't have associated Thal's music here with your original request. Have you tried any of ex Megadeth, Chris Poland's solo albums, while his current jazz rock fusion band Ohm skirts on the heavy.  Buckethead..................

It's good to meet someone else who knows Ron Thal.

Buckethead also came to my mind ... still not very Fusion.

What about these:

• Tony MacAlpine - Chromaticity
• Planet X - All
• Derek Sherinian - All
• Jordan Rudess - Rhythm of Time

ok guys all good suggestions (and btw Satriani guests on Rhythm of Time).  I dont want you to blame me for leading us all on a wild moose chase but this is starting to go further from the song I fell in love with. I think maybe I'm to blame because I started referring to "jazz rock fusion" early on because that's the closest preexisting genre I could think of to describe it. But now that you think closer, the composer threw away all what happened with Jazz rock fusion. Do u remember the Encino Man movie? A leading smooth fast classical jazz band in the original 50s got trapped in their Kelvinator fridge and then were thawed out by a 2000s numetal studio engineer who gave them all these albums to listen to of what music has become, and then their saxophonist said heyyyyyyyyy I like this and threw away his kit and picked up a guitar instead. It's like the guitar style and "edgier" fx & mixdown was the only heavy and  new thing there (albeit a REMARKABLE novel thing), but all the other instruments, all the bass, drums, piano were old skool. So they cant be labelled by any category. You cant really shelf them under classical jazz, jazzrockfusion, or numetal but theyd be in the jazz section. Grrr u dont have 2 keep trying if it doesnt ring a bell, please just kill this thread and move on or I;ll go bezonkers