Jazz Fusion or Jazz Prog Fusion

This is a doubt I always had and would love some expert in the issue to explain me.

Edit : Not all jazz fusion is progressive, I've been playing and listening to jazz fusion since the stuff was invented. In the 'business' we call lame fusion 'fuzak' after the background music company muzak.

Herbie and Miles are excellent examples of progressive jazz fusion. All that commercial crap that came out in the late 70s early 80s is a good example of fuzak.

Thank goodness for the Knitting Factory scene (John Zorn, Steve Coleman etc) in the mid-80s which reintroduced progressive jazz fusion.

Edited by Easy Money - August 23 2008 at 09:13

In the 70s and 80s, there was never any talk of including jazz fusion or jazz rock under the prog umbrella.

mr70s wrote: In the 70s and 80s, there was never any talk of including jazz fusion or jazz rock under the prog umbrella. Could it be that prog should actually be included under the jazz rock umbrella ?

Speaking as someone who became a fan of prog in the late '70's all of the following top albums from the '70's were considered prog in my circle of prog loving friends. 

4.47
MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
Birds of Fire
(1973)    
4.50
DI MEOLA, AL
Elegant Gypsy
(1977)    
4.45
BRUFORD, BILL
One of a Kind
(1979)    
4.45
SANTANA
Caravanserai
(1972)
4.32
MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
Inner Mounting Flame
(1971)
4.53
RETURN TO FOREVER
Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy
(1973)    
4.48
COBHAM, BILLY
Spectrum
(1973)    
4.52
PONTY, JEAN-LUC
Enigmatic Ocean
(1977)    
4.39
RETURN TO FOREVER
Romantic Warrior
(1976)    
4.25
BRAND X
Unorthodox Behaviour
(1976)

Looking at the list, they all do have plenty of rock elements in them.  Frankly I don't mind if a little jazz sneaks its way into this site.  Balances out the metal. 

Uh-oh, someone just reviewed Someday My Prince Will Come.  There goes the neighborhood.


Edited by Slartibartfast - August 22 2008 at 13:02

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: Dick Heath wrote: 'Jazz rock' has always been about the fusion of 'jazz' elements and 'rock' elements into the hybrid. 'Progressive music' was originally the fusion of 'rock' with any one or more types of music, in the 60's often for the first time - whether folk, jazz, classical (here  including either use of classical compositions or classical music structures to a new composition), folk, various world (folk) musics, etc.  In other words 'jazz rock 'was both a sub-division of 'progressive music' and 'jazz'. . Around 1970 there was a parting of the ways of 'progressive music', into the more familar commonplace 'progressive rock', 'folk rock', 'heavy rock', etc. - and certainly MO, RTF, WR released albums afterwards which still retained creditability as 'progressive rock'. To a large extent is is the slow loss of much and often all of the rock elements, (apart from the element of amplification) moved 'jazz rock' into 'jazz fusion' (to added confusion since 'jazz rock' was literally a fusion of genres...... hence the better term  'jazz-rock-fusion') . But then a lot of Soft Machine's recording catalogue into the 70's has less rock than most other examples of the "'jazz-rock' fraternity.... (BTW I'm remain confused as to where 'Art -Rock' fits in here???)   Until there I follow you Dick, that's what I thought, as a fact as few know I'm a fan of Jazz and Fusion since I inherited my whole gradfather's Jazz and Fusion collection when he died in 1981, more than 300 original LP's.   I remember all then problems I had to add Jean Luc Ponty to the Archives about two years ago, but I believe his post Mahavishnu works are 100% Prog.     I think see where you're coming from Ivan, but I am sticking with the 60's original useage of 'jazz rock', rather the useage corrupted by the rethink of what/who defined 'progressive rock' circa 1972-3, when the big players were becoming established, e.g. Yes, KC, GG, Genesis, VdGG, and definitions got really narrowed down. Hence, I'm looking/listening for a  fusion of jazz and rock, not more specifically jazz and progressive rock. One problem is many of the jazz rock musicians shifted into jazz-fusion sans rock late 70's early 80's to retain their jazz creditials - and we are stuck with that policy: the complete discography - which means very strangely Kind Of Blue greets you on the opening page to this site this week????????????????????????????????????????????????? Fortunately we have had musicians whohaven't bowed down to fashions, and jazz rock has continued to progress to this very day. BTW I would feel very unhappy if prog fusion became dominant, since since too often this is no more than instrumental progressive rock, lacking jazz..     But my main question (which you obviously get) is:   Is it enough for a Jazz band to blend Jazz and Rock to be here? No of course not. I know of a hundred jazz-rock bands/artists who I havent even bothered trying to add here since the prog element is somewhat lacking, or there isnt enough of it. Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, i feel, have these elements (whatever you want to call them). I also think there's a couple of JR bands who shouldnt be here or should be in different place. Not to mention Davis and Hancock were big parts in the progressive music movement of 1969-1974. Do we need a special and additional Prog element to add a band- Iván

also, i dont particularly like the idea of the jazz-rock/fusion genre being split up. there would be so much arguing because it is such a varied genre. also having 'prog-jazz' and 'jazz-rock/fusion' might cause newbies to only check out prog-jazz and not the other, which probably would include prog jazz bands anyway. I also agree with whoever said prog-jazz is nothing more than instrumental progressive rock without the jazz. there are a few culprits on this site (not whole discographies, just an album or 2)

Personally I  think in a confused and accidentally  way we have come out with a good compromise, affected by the policy limitations of this site. Jazz rock fusion might be bent and buckled to fit mnay variations of terminology but it is functional and it isn't broke. So let's not trying fixing, until some majority thinking and refurbishment is done to the whole of the site.

John Scofield is a jazz-rock/fusion artists. Been making jazz-rock since the 70s. Same with a guy like Mike Stern. But would they make more sense to be added to this site if we split the genre up? i think so. Right now they wouldnt make sense because they are not necessarily prog. And they both played with Miles Davis, but it would be ridiculous to add them as 'prog-related', since they are jazz musicians.

my point is, is that if the genre was split up, i think a lot more non-prog jazz-rock/fusion bands and artists would be able to be added because the 'jazz-fusion' section would be open for basically anyone who made any kind of jazz-fusion, prog or not. the 'prog-jazz-rock' section would actually be more strict on who gets in, because a certain kind of standard is set for that sub-section.

The way it works right now is fine IMO because bands and artists can get in, as long as there are some criteria met.

This happened to the prog metal section and the site is now flooded with IMO too many non-prog metal bands. It seems any metal band with a lot of technical skills and 'epic' songwriting can get in.

If this happens to the jazz-rock section, any jazz artist or band that uses an electric piano, and a rock beat would be able to get in.

you dont see John Scofield, Mike Stern, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Mann, Steve Jenkins, George Duke, Scott Henderson (Tribal Tech), George Benson, Joe Farrell, and many more who made many excellent jazz-rock recordings, on this site. But they ARE jazz-rock artists. And some played with bands or artists who ARE here. But their music does not really have many 'prog' elements.

But if the split were to happen, you will easily see most (if not all) of these artists added, and this will give rise to even MORE arguing and disagreements. I would love to see one or 2 of those guys I mentioned added, but I know there would not be enough support.

I don't like where this is heading.

Let me try to rephrase Iván's question:

"Is all of Jazz-Fusion Prog?"

I don't think so. Imagine that the prog metal team would say: All technical Thrash/Death metal is prog. I don't think this is a sane thing to do, and neither is to include all Jazz Fusion or Jazz-Rock. Just my two cents ... since I'm still a newbie when it comes to Jazz-Fusion, feel free to ignore this post, but maybe some of you might agree.

^ So you agree with my statement? (not all Jazz-Fusion is prog)

Shame about the jazz rock fusion artists John Scofield and Mike Stern not quite fitting in the jazz rock fusion category.....Similarly, while Return To Forever slots in neatly, Bill Connors gets left out in the cold.

Edited by mr70s - August 22 2008 at 20:00