Jazz fusion

Bitches Brew is an influential record in the history of jazz fusion.In the 1960s, the hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion was developed. Notable artists of the 1960s and 1970s jazz and fusion scene include: Miles Davis, who recorded the fusion albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew in 1968 and 1969, Chick Corea and his Return to Forever band, ex- Miles Davis drummer prodigy Tony Williams's Lifetime with Alan Holdsworth and Larry Young among others, Herbie Hancock and his Headhunters band, John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa, Al Di Meola, Jean-Luc Ponty, Sun Ra, Soft Machine, Narada Michael Walden, Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, the Pat Metheny Group and Weather Report. Some of artists have continued to develop the genre into the 2000s.

Jazz community has shrunk dramatically...

1980s
However, the jazz community has shrunk dramatically and split, with a mainly older audience retaining an interest in traditional and "straight-ahead" jazz styles, a small core of practitioners and fans interested in highly experimental modern jazz, and a constantly changing group of musicians fusing jazz idioms with contemporary popular music genres.

There have been other developments in the 1980s and 1990s that were less commercially oriented. Many of these artists, notably Wynton Marsalis, called what they were doing jazz and in fact strove to define what the term actually meant. They sought to create within what they felt was the tradition, creating extensions of small and large forms initially pioneered by such artists as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. In the case of Marsalis these efforts met with critical acclaim.

Others musicians in this time period - although clearly within the tradition of the great spontaneous composers such as Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Fats Navarro and many others – choose to distance themselves from the term jazz and simply define what they were doing as music (this in fact was suggested by the great composer Duke Ellington when the term jazz first began to be popular).

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Acid Jazz and Nu Jazz
Styles as acid jazz which contains elements of 1970s disco, acid swing which combines 1940s style big-band sounds with faster, more aggressive rock-influenced drums and electric guitar, and nu jazz which combines elements of jazz and modern forms of electronic dance music.

Exponents of the "acid jazz" style which was initially UK-based included the Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, James Taylor Quartet, Young Disciples, and Corduroy. In the United States, acid jazz groups included the Groove Collective, Soulive, and Solsonics. In a more pop or smooth jazz context, jazz enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s with such bands as Pigbag and Curiosity Killed the Cat achieving chart hits in Britain. Sade Adu became the definitive voice of smooth jazz.

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Funk-based Improvisation
Jean-Paul Bourelly and M-Base argue that rhythm is the key for further progress in the music; they believe that the rhythmic innovations of James Brown and other Funk pioneers can provide an effective rhythmic base for spontaneous composition.

These musicians playing over a funk groove and extend the rhythmic ideas in a way analogous to what had been done with harmony in previous decades, an approach M-Base calls Rhythmic Harmony. Wynton Marsalis has disagreed with the use of funk as a musical genre for jazz improvisation, preferring instead to retain the rhythmic base of swing.

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1990s
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Electronica
With the rise in popularity of various forms of electronic music during the late 1980s and 1990s, some jazz artists have attempted a fusion of jazz with more of the experimental leanings of electronica (particularly IDM and Drum and bass) with various degrees of success. This has been variously dubbed "future jazz", "jazz-house" or "nu jazz".

The more experimental and improvisional end of the spectrum includes Scandinavia-based artists such as pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær (who both began their careers on the ECM record label), and the trio Wibutee, all of whom have gained their chops as instrumentalists in their own right in more traditional jazz circles.

The Cinematic Orchestra from the UK or Julien Lourau from France have also gained praise in this area. Toward the more pop or pure dance music end of the spectrum of nu jazz are such proponents as St Germain and Jazzanova, who incorporate some live jazz playing with more metronomic house beats.

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2000s
In the 2000s, "jazz" hit the pop charts and blended with contemporary Urban music through the work of artists like Norah Jones, Jill Scott, Jamie Cullum, Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse and Diana Krall and the jazz advocacy of performers who are also music educators (such as Jools Holland, Courtney Pine and Peter Cincotti). A debate has arisen as to whether the music of these performers can be called jazz or not (see below).

Jazz is often difficult to define...

Jazz is often difficult to define, but improvisation is a key element of the form. Improvisation has been since early times an essential element in African and African-American music and is closely related to the use of call and response in West African and African-American cultural expression.

The form of improvisation has changed over time. Early folk blues music often was based around a call and response pattern, and improvisation would factor into the lyrics, the melody, or both. In the Dixieland style, musicians taking turns playing the melody while the others improvise countermelodies.

By the Swing era, big bands played using arranged sheet music, but individual soloists would perform improvised solos within these compositions. In bebop, however, the focus shifted from arranging to improvisation over the form; musicians paid less attention to the composed melody, or "head," which was played at the beginning and the end of the tune's performance.

As previously noted, later styles of jazz, such as modal jazz, abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise more freely within the context of a given scale or mode (e.g., the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue).

When a pianist, guitarist or other chord-playing instrumentalist improvises an accompaniment while a soloist is playing, it is called comping (a contraction of the word "accompanying"). "Vamping" is a mode of comping that is usually restricted to a few repeating chords or bars, as opposed to comping on the chord structure of the entire composition. Most often, vamping is used as a simple way to extend the very beginning or end of a piece, or to set up a segue.

In some modern jazz compositions where the underlying chords of the composition are particularly complex or fast moving, the composer or performer may create a set of "blowing changes," which is a simplfied set of chords better suited for comping and solo improvisation.

Debates over definition of "jazz"

Debates over definition of "jazz"
There have long been debates in the jazz community over the boundaries or definition of “jazz”. In the mid-1930s, New Orleans jazz lovers criticized the "radical innovations" of the swing era. In the 1950s and 1960s, traditional jazz enthusiasts harshly criticized Hard Bop. Although alteration or transformation of jazz by new influences has been initially criticized as “radical” or a “debasement”, Andrew Gilbert argues that jazz has the “ability to absorb and transform influences” from diverse musical styles.

Commercially-oriented or popular music-influenced forms of jazz are have long been criticized. Traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed the 1970s jazz fusion era as a period of commercial debasement. However, according to Bruce Johnson, jazz music has always had a “ tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form ”[2].

Gilbert notes that as the notion of a canon of traditional jazz is developing, the “achievements of the past” may be become “...privileged over the idiosyncratic creativity...” and innovation of current artists. Village Voice jazz critic Gary Giddins argues that as the creation and dissemination of jazz is becoming increasingly institutionalized and dominated by major entertainment firms, jazz is facing a "...perilous future of respectability and disinterested acceptance". David Ake warns that the creation of “norms” in jazz and the establishment of a “jazz tradition” may exclude or sideline other newer, avant-garde forms of jazz[2].

One way to get around the definitional problems is to define the term “jazz” more broadly. According to Krin Gabbard “jazz is a construct” or category that, while artificial, still is a useful to designate “a number of musics with enough in common part of a coherent tradition”. Travis Jackson also definites jazz in a broader way by stating that it is music that includes qualities such as “ 'swinging', improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being 'open' to different musical possibilities”[2].

Where to draw the boundaries of "jazz" is the subject of debate among music critics, scholars, and fans.