The Jazz-Rock/Fusion Appreciation Thread

 

However, several of those now so-called mainstream artists you list fused jazz with other music:

 

Benny Goodman: jazz and East European Jewish music

Django Reinhart and Stefane Grapelli; jazz and gipsy music and some European classical;.

Jacques Loussier: Bach and jazz.

 

Jazz is a very broad based music, some of it b*****dised and hybridised, some of it original (i.e. difficult to identify precursors) e.g. be bop. You only have to go back to the  early 30's to find there was sub categorisation: e.g. New Orleans (Dixieland), Kansas, Chicago whilst Paul Whiteman had produced this big band hybrid that had already played Rhapsody in Blue  - the first fusion of jazz and classical music before the music was rearranged in the now more familiar classical orchestral form. Maurice Ravel wasn't far behind and had already taken lessons with Bix Beiderbeck, as payment for lessons Beiderbeck had taken from the visiting French composer in piano composition and arrangement - Beiderbeck's rare piano recording (of about 1929??)  In A Mist  is one example of jazz with classical influences.

 

If your really want to hear some of the roots of jazz fusion, listen to the recording of the first major American jazz concert at Carnegie Hall made in January 1938 by Benny Goodman:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Carnegie-Hall-January-16th-1938/dp/B000HWXGDO/ref=sr_1_2/202-4429496-3225414?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1186750187&sr=1-2 

 

If your into Nucleus you'll love these.Forget about a CD issue though.

 

And the ELP.