Major Jazz Rock Albums. Modern jazz-rock Jazz rock bands of France

The English word fusion (fusion) best defines the name of a jazz direction that combines elements of funk, metal, folk, jazz, hip-hop, R&B, reggae and other styles. In one jazz fusion album, music from all of the above directions can be found, which makes them interesting for those who are looking for their own style and experimenting with jazz.

Performers

Jazz fusion is a "fusion" of jazz with elements of various directions: metal, electronics, reggae, folk, pop, rock, hip-hop, ethnic, etc. Often, even in one artist's album, you will find an explosive mixture of the above. Fusion originated in the late 60s of the last century, when jazzmen began to experiment with electronic music, rock, rhythm and blues. At the same time, rock musicians were not alien to jazz elements and diversified their compositions with their help. In the 70s, fusion reached its peak, but in subsequent decades it enjoyed stable popularity with performers and listeners. This style can be called systematized, experts consider it as an approach or a musical tradition, therefore, for example, progressive rock is considered fusion.

The most prominent representatives of fusion were musicians performing jazz-rock, for example, Eleventh House, Lifetime. The birth of fusion was associated with such orchestras as the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report, playing bright, interesting and diverse music, often successfully experimenting with directions. Among individual fusion musicians, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, guitarists Pat Metheny, John Scofield, John Abercrombie and James "Blood" Ulmer, saxophonist and trumpeter Ornette Coleman stand out.

Fusion is distinguished by instrumentality, complex measures, meter, long compositions with inclusions of improvisations. Most of the musicians who play this music are easily recognizable due to the high level of technique that is rarely found in such forms. In the US, fusion doesn't get much airtime due to its complexity and lack of vocal content. However, in Japan, Europe, South America, there are entire radio stations broadcasting for a large number of style fans.

History knows many examples when the ideas of innovators were not accepted by the public, sometimes even persecuted, but in the end, these pioneers were recognized as geniuses, and the whole world used their achievements. This happened in jazz too - the musicians went beyond the traditional style and were often not misunderstood. Newer influences such as Miles Davis, Tony Williams, or the bands Weather Report and Return to Forever, created their best jazz-rock albums without thinking that they would become world hits. However, this is exactly what happened...

Top Jazz Rock Albums

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew album

A double album by the American jazz trumpeter was released in early 1970 by Columbia Records. This album reflects experiments with the use of electronic instruments - guitar and synthesizer.

This album is considered the progenitor of jazz-rock direction. Traditional jazz standards are replaced by viscous, unexpectedly exploding improvisation. The musicians rehearsed just before recording, which forced them to dive deeper into the music they were playing. From the instructions, they received only the size, the main chords and a small segment of the melody, from which improvisation then grew. By the way, the compositions “Dance of the Pharaoh” and the ballad “Sanctuary” do not belong to the authorship of Davis.

After the release of the album, opinions about it were divided. The very fact that Columbia Records released an album called Bitch's Brew was scandalous.

The content did not lag behind the name - a stylistic direction close to jazz fusion or jazz rock, experiments with sound and special effects, electronic instruments - all this made it possible not only to split the society into two parts - for and against, but also to bring the album wildly popular. The album quickly became the first gold in Davis' career, and later won a Grammy.

Return to Forever – Romantic Warrior album

Return to Forever is an American jazz fusion band from the 1970s. Released in 1976, the album "Romantic Warrior" with the participation became the sixth and most famous in the history of the group. The music of the album, stylized as the Middle Ages, is varied starting from the cover. The album opens with Medieval Overture, which is entirely acoustic.

On the one hand, the “Sorceress” seems to be prepared by an overture, on the other hand, it is opposite in style and a synthesizer appears among the instrumental composition. The composition "Majestic Dance" relies on rock riffs and a distorted "lead" guitar sound, which is supported by fast passages similar to harpsichords.

Some critics confirmed that the record deserves to be included in the best jazz-rock albums in history, while others argued that all the compositions are too classical and pompous, and the album itself is almost the worst in history.

Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters album

Head Hunters is the 12th studio album, which was released in 1973 on the same Columbia Records. The album has been added to the "National Registration Register" of the Library of Congress.

It is quite difficult to unequivocally attribute the album "Headhunters" to jazz-rock. This record is rather a vivid example of how RNB rhythms, emphasized, among other things, by African-American percussion instruments, can be extremely successfully combined with relaxed funk rhythms.

The album's eclectic sound not only continued to pave the way for all-electronic music, but also significantly influenced other musical genres, becoming another winner in the battle for the title of the best jazz-rock albums of all time.

Weather Report - Heavy Weather album

Another California album released by Columbia Records in 1977, this time from the band Weather Report.

We are once again dealing with one of the best albums in the history of jazz, which was released when the phenomenon of jazz-rock "began to get out of hand", as critic Richard Ginell commented.

One of the brightest compositions of the album is Birdland. This is absolutely amazing as it is completely instrumental. Instantly becoming a jazz standard and contributing to the popularity of the album, Birdland represents the pinnacle of the band's creativity.

It is curious that, although the composition itself did not receive a Grammy, subsequently the song was not only included in the repertoire of many famous performers, but its versions were also awarded Grammys three times.

Tony Williams - Believe It album

The jazz-rock album "Believe It" (1975) by Tony Williams and his band The Tony Williams Lifetime is again recorded on Columbia Records. This is the group's first album. The first, not the most famous, but extremely interesting at the same time.

It is worth noting - the first only in the new stage of Williams, the first - for the new composition of the group. Up to this point, by 1974, as many as four albums from the constantly disintegrating Williams trio had already been released.

John Swanson writes that Believe it is like a "crazy fusion tasting". Almost a sensation was the new British guitarist Allan Holdsworth, remembered for both expressive musical language - soft, harmonious and very lyrical, and mastery of the instrument. However, we are indebted to the fusion of jazz and rock, and they are also due to Williams with his concept of rhythmic freedom and incredible ingenuity.

jazz rock(English) jazz rock) is a direction of music, the name of which speaks for itself. This unique mixture of jazz and rock appeared relatively recently - in the 60s of the XX century, when the boundaries of their vast style seemed too narrow to some progressive jazzmen. Traditionally, the emergence of jazz-rock is geographically attributed to the United States, but in the Old World there were also enough nuggets who, independently of their colleagues from across the ocean, mastered the new sound.

Already in the early 60s in the UK there were groups such as Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and the Graham Bond Organization, whose musicians tried to combine jazz and rhythm and blues in their work. Jazz-rock echoes can also be heard on the 1964 album The Five Faces of Manfred Mann by Manfred Mann. However, venerable music critics tend to consider the disc of the American jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton "Duster", which went on sale in 1967, as the first work in jazz-rock. On this disc, a young Texan musician Larry Coryell performed as a guitarist. It is he who stands at the origins of the style, which is commonly called jazz-rock.

A year before working with the great Gary Burton, Larry managed to be noted in the group The Free Spirits, which also tried to mix jazz with rock in their experiments. When it became clear that the two independent genres of music were quite compatible, Miles Davis' "Miles in the Sky" appeared on the charts. From that moment, jazz-rock began to gain momentum. The bands playing in the new key arose independently of each other on both sides of the ocean and sounded very diverse. And this diversity was determined by the broad framework of both genres. To compare, for example, the Americans Blood, Sweat and Tears with the British The Soft Machine is a completely different approach to music, but both groups at certain moments of their creativity can be fully attributed to this direction.

Jazz rock is characterized by a significant duration of compositions, improvisation, its jazz foundation with all its consequences and the use of rock instruments. During the heyday of this trend in the 70s, such bands as The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Brand X, Chicago, Return to Forever appeared - groups that are considered classics of the genre to this day. The following years somewhat expanded the boundaries of jazz-rock, adding to it world, funk and elements of pop music, including electronics. Many sub-genres have appeared, but their basis is the same unchanging jazz.

Jazz rock is also sometimes referred to by the term "fusion" ( English fusion), the appearance of which is associated with the arrival of black musicians in jazz-rock, who did not want to associate themselves with white rock culture. A characteristic feature of fusion is the bias towards funk. But, to a greater extent, the term "fusion" contains not a musical, but a social connotation, marking the implementation of the "fusion" not only at the level of musical cultures, but also between different ethnic groups of performers and listeners. A striking example of this social fusion was the performance of black Miles Davis at concerts at the Fillmore West in 1970 in front of an audience of white hippies in a line-up with white and black performers.

The first ensembles that began to perform music, called "jazz-rock", consisted of young performers who grew up in a rock environment, but were inclined towards jazz aesthetics, to improvisational instrumental music. They were practically rock bands with a brass section.

This direction can be attributed to the origins of the entire fusion style.

First of all, groups of this direction use vocals. The main theme in each piece is sung like a song rather than played as in later instrumental music. True, after the vocal part, improvisational solos and, of course, skillfully written orchestral losses for wind instruments are often played. And then, as is customary in pop music, the vocalist ends the piece.

Such a scheme was typical for the brightest American groups that announced themselves in 1968 - "" and "". The brass section of these groups included only three or four different instruments, usually trumpet, trombone and saxophone, and the orchestrations for them were made in such a way that, in combination with guitar, bass guitar and keyboards, they sounded like a real big band. Soon the group "" created by trumpeter Bill Chase became immensely popular. The peculiarity of its sound was that the brass section consisted of four pipes playing in a high register. Unfortunately, in 1974, Bill Chase with three of his colleagues died in a plane crash and the group disbanded.

Usually all the laurels of the pioneers of jazz-rock go to the groups "Chicago" and "Blood, Sweat & Tears", although attempts to combine these two currents were made by other musicians, in parallel, and sometimes even before them. For example, back in 1965, the New York group "The Free Spirits" appeared (for some reason John McLaughlin borrowed this name when creating his trio in 1993), already then performing what can be safely attributed to jazz-rock. guitarist Larry Coriell, who later became a star of fusion music, began his career.

White bluesman from Chicago Michael Bloomfield (Michael Bloomfield) in 1967 created the group "The Electric Flag", calling it "The Orchestra of American Music". It was a blues-rock ensemble with an added horn section, which gave the white blues extra power.

American groups of this direction had their own ideology - to create something in the USA that would resist the wave of the "British Invasion" that swept the United States.
In 1969, he began to perform and produce instrumental rock music with improvisations, he is an eternal nihilist and shocking experimenter. With his assistance, many fusion musicians reached a high level of fame. It is impossible not to recall the rock band "The Flock", in which the jazz violinist played, who later became famous for his participation in the first composition of the "Mahavishnu Orchestra" by John McLoughlin.

In 1970, the jazz drummer created the Dreams group, which at first was noticeably similar in orchestration to its predecessors Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. The difference was that Dreams featured brilliant jazz improvisers, such as Michael Brecker (Michael Brecker) and Randy Brecker (Randy Brecker), who played on the first record in "Blood, Sweat & Tears", as well as guitarist John Abercrombie (John Abercrombie), not to mention Billy Cubame himself. All these musicians became famous soon as stars of the fusion style, participating in the most famous ensembles.

And the group "Dreams" can no longer be called white "brass rock", since it was racially mixed, and, despite the outward resemblance to "Chicago", it was more like "rock jazz", that is, jazz that resembled rock. (I remind the reader that in English the first of two words is the definition of the second.) In the same period, that is, immediately after the instant fame of the pioneers of jazz rock, some famous American jazzmen began to play in a new way, using rhythms borrowed from rhythm and blues, soul and funk music.
It is impossible not to note the appearance on the verge of the 60s and 70s of a number of projects aimed not so much at creating a fundamentally new music, but at popularizing jazz by performing in a new way works taken from pop culture, from classical music. Jazz trombonist Don Sebesky then made a number of interesting experimental recordings with large orchestras.

Critics, who have not yet figured out what is happening, dubbed such music "pop jazz", despite the fact that in its structure it was immeasurably more complicated than what fits the term "pop". A number of prominent jazz musicians who played "soul jazz" and "hard bop" in the 60s, in the first half of the 70s under the production of Grid Taylor, made a number of records that can be safely attributed to jazz-rock forms. These are, first of all, George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Hubert Laws. But this line of early jazz-rock did not receive its further development.
Over time, when rock culture was swept away by the disco era, jazz-rock classics were included in the history of jazz, their names began to be entered in jazz encyclopedias, reference books and dictionaries. The replacement of the term 'Jazz-rock' by 'Fusion' was largely due to the arrival of black musicians in jazz-rock, who did not want to be associated with white rock culture, and gave the whole movement the character of funk music.

The term "fusion" has not only a musical, but also a social connotation, indicating that the "fusion" occurred not only at the level of musical cultures, but also between different ethnic groups of listeners and performers.
This was especially exemplified by Miles Davis, who performed at the Fillmore West in front of an audience of white hippies with avant-garde funky music, in a line-up with white performers.

In Great Britain

In England, the picture of the birth of what we would arbitrarily call jazz-rock was somewhat different, primarily because there were no racial contradictions, there were no two parallel cultures - white and black. When in 1957 England was visited by black bluesmen from the USA - Big Bill Broonzie (Big Bill Broonzie) and Muddy Waters (Muddy Waters), the so-called "British blues" was born. Its pioneers were London jazzmen Chris Barber (Cris Barber), Cyril Davis Cirill Davis), Alexis Corner (Alexis Corner) and others.

Shocked by close contact with true blues, these jazzmen began to create their own version of white blues.
A number of bands are emerging in London clubs, the most famous of which are "Blues Incorporated", "Graham Bond Organization" and "Blue Flames". In this environment, future stars of various directions went through a good school - Mick Jagger, Brian Jones (Braian Johnes), Dick Heckstal-Smith, John McLoughlin, Jack Bruce and many others.

In the UK in the second half of the 60s, many rock bands of different aesthetics arose, using wind instruments and elements of improvisation. Traditionally, they are classified as "progressive rock" or "art rock", but in fact they are typical representatives of early jazz rock. These are the groups "Soft Machine", "Colosseum", "If", "Jethro Tull", "Emerson, Lake & Palmer", "Air Force", "The Third Ear Band" and a number of others.

The British school of early art rock (progressive or jazz rock) of the late 60s is characterized by a noticeable influence of rhythm and blues, on the one hand, and on the other hand, on the contrary, by the special depth and content inherent in centuries-old European culture.
Music of this kind, created in that short period in England, is in many ways unique and underestimated by the mass audience.
The initial period of the formation of jazz-rock is characterized by the search for something new both on the part of a small number of jazzmen and on the part of explicit rock performers. Then there were quite unusual combinations of musicians. A prominent representative of hard rock guitarist from "Deep Purple" Tommy Bolin (Tommy Bolin) is looking for contacts with jazzmen, recorded on the disc "Spectrum" with Billy Kabham (Billy Kobham). Rock guitarist Jeff Beck records with keyboardist Ian Hammer, who became a prominent figure in jazz-rock after his participation in the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Rock bassist Jack Bruce, known for his in the brief life of the super-group "Cream", played for a while in "Soft Machine", and then recorded in the project of the American jazz drummer Tony Williams (Tony Williams) "Lifetime". Genesis drummer Phil Collins collaborates with guitarist Al Di Meola and plays in Brand X. And there are many such examples.

But already in this period, there was a noticeable trend towards the gradual transformation of jazz-rock into purely instrumental music. The vocalist is replaced by a virtuoso improviser. The brass section becomes optional. The composition of jazz-rock ensembles is formed according to the principle of jazz combos - a rhythm group plus soloists. Acoustic instruments are being replaced by electronic ones. Instead of a double bass, a bass guitar is used, instead of a piano - keyboards (Wutlitzer piano, Rhodes piano, later - synthesizers). The electric guitar with "gadgets" comes to the place of the jazz acoustic guitar.

In the early period of jazz-rock, the rhythmic concept that came from rock culture prevails, that is, based on rhythm and blues, on soul music. The further fate of jazz-rock in the process of its gradual transformation into "fusion" music is connected with the transition to a completely different sense of rhythm, to the concept of "funk" style. Jazz-rock becomes the music of improvisers as its fate passes into the hands of prominent jazz figures such as Miles Davis (Miles Davis), Chick Corea (Chick Corea), Joe Zavinul (Joe Zavinul), John McLoughlin (John McLoughlin), Herbie Hancock ( Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter.

Alexey Kozlov.

Fusion albums, even those made by a single artist, often include a variety of these styles.

Origins of fusion

Jazz musicians followed the advances of pop music and also began to use improved editing in modern recording studios, multi-track recording and electronic effects to complement compositions or improvisations. For example, trumpeter Miles Davis' albums In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew (1970) include long (more than 20 minutes) compositions that have never been recorded directly by musicians in the studio, and musical themes of various lengths were selected from recorded improvisations and assembled into a single whole. It is considered the cornerstone of this genre's recordings.

Many rock musicians began to approach jazz forms independently in the mid-1960s. The Byrds in December 1965 recorded the first version of "Eight Miles High", an innovative single that emulated the style of the classic John Coltrane quartet. In 1966 Paul Butterfield ( Paul Butterfield) and Mike Bloomfield ( Mike Bloomfield) recorded a lengthy improv piece, "East-West".

Other rock musicians have also performed and recorded rock songs that include extended improvisations, long, multi-part compositions. For example, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band in the US and King Crimson, Soft Machine, Yes (who performed The Byrds' "I See You" in a fusion style) and Frank Zappa released their first jazz-rock album, Hot Rats, in 1969 year . He continued to occasionally record fusion music during his career (eg Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo), becoming a significant exponent of the genre.

Some notable jazz-rock bands also had significant success in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the American Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Steely Dan, Dreams, and the British Colosseum and If.

Rise of the genre: 1970s

Some groups (Blood, Sweat and Tears, Chicago and others) took the sound of big bands, rhythm and blues and various directions of rock music as a basis. Other groups, relying on free jazz, began to experiment more with the electric sound of instruments, various types of music, complicate the melody and rhythm. Jazz fusion gradually became so close to prog rock that often the same bands are classified as both at once. Fusion groups paid a lot of attention to improvisation, honed their performing technique, bringing it to virtuosity. The most significant teams accepted not only by jazz, but also by rock audiences are Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, Return To Forever, Brand X.

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See what "Jazz-rock" is in other dictionaries:

- (English jazz rock), a trend in popular music since the late 1960s, borderline between jazz and rock music. From the first, the spirit of improvisation and competitiveness is perceived, from the second, electromusical instruments and rhythmic features ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Modern Encyclopedia

jazz rock- (English jazz rock), a trend in popular music since the late 1960s, bordering between jazz and rock music. From the first, the spirit of improvisation and competition was perceived, from the second, electro musical instruments and rhythmic ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (eng. Jazz rock) a style direction that arose on the basis of a synthesis of jazz and rock music. Jazz-rock reached its peak by the end of the 1960s... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Jazz rock, jazz rock... Spelling Dictionary

jazz rock- jazz ro/k, jazz ro/ka… merged. Apart. Through a hyphen.

jazz rock- jazz rock ok, ah ... Russian spelling dictionary

jazz rock- the name of a human family ... Spelling Dictionary of Ukrainian Movies

jazz rock- jazz / rock / ... Morphemic spelling dictionary

jazz rock- (2 m), R. jazz ro / ka ... Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language

Books

• Concise encyclopedic dictionary of jazz, rock and pop music. Terms and concepts, Korolev O.. The dictionary contains the main terms and concepts used in the musical theory and performing practice of jazz, rock and pop music. It includes about 600 articles on various issues of theory and ...