Fusion and Fragmentation
The success of fusion opened jazz to new regions. A few examples of these directions should suffice to show how jazz remains vital in today's musical culture. Generally speaking, jazz continues to be divided between a music that provides social function-like dancing-and that which provides an intellectual pursuit. Like other types of music, commercial success does not necessarily make critical success and there are valid arguments for each side.
Selling more than 10 million records is the early 1970s band Spyro Gyra who created the groundwork for what would become known as smooth jazz. This enormously popular group creates music that is easy to listen to with minimal amounts of improvisation.
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Morning Dance
Spyro Gyra
On the other hand, Weather Report, another enormously popular band from the same period creates more sophisticated jazz, relying heavily on the fusion influences many of them learned while playing in Miles Davis' electric jazz fusion groups. With super musicians like saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Joe Zawinul and bassist Jaco Pastorius this band infused elements of R&B and funk into their music. Their tune "Birdland" became a crossover hit and is now considered a jazz standard. The title comes from a jazz club in New York named after Charlie "Bird" Parker.
Kenny G.
Singers like Anita Baker and Sade and saxophonists Kenny G. and Grover Washington Jr. belong to a genre of jazz called "Quiet Storm."
Like the parallel streams of big band jazz and bebop, the styles just mentioned run in tandem with forms of jazz that are often considered more sophisticated, and significantly less mainstream.
Anita Baker
Post-modern jazz takes its cue from a media-rich and historically aware culture. Post-modernists borrow from every imaginable source and synthesize it into unique works of art.For example, pianist Cyrus Chestnut incorporates piano playing as diverse as stride, gospel and classical. In his composition "Blues for Nita Cyrus Chestnut" recalls Art Tatum, as much as, McCoy Tyner.
Likewise the Cuban-born trumpeter Arturo Sandoval infuses his music with a hyperkinetic energy. His composition "The Real McBop," nominated for a Grammy award in 1996, references the music of Dizzy Gillespie, the bebop trumpeter who "discovered" Sandoval. The ultra-fast tempo, the instrumental virtuosity and reliance on previously existing music makes this work an excellent example of the post-bebop style.
As jazz passes its hundred year anniversary, a movement to preserve the live jazz experience has begun. Leading the way is New Orleans born trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Spearheading the preservation of "historical performance," Marsalis has created a platform to recreate concerts by Duke Ellington and others. By returning to the original music created for various groups band, Marsalis and his musicians try to duplicate the sound of individual players as accurately as possible.
As jazz enters the 21st century it continues to evolve by blending with other musical genres. One of the most interesting is known as acid jazz. Acid jazz began to incorporate elements of hip-hop and techno-dance music in clubs around the US. Using technology to sample recordings, Acid jazz is created much the same way that Teo Maceo created Bitches Brew. Us3, an acid jazz band from London that uses recordings from the American jazz label Blue Note. In their composition "Cantaloop," Us3 samples a riff from Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" and surrounds it with a funky, danceable rhythm. This music has been used in many televised advertisements.
♫ Cantaloop
Us3
Conclusion
For more than one hundred years, jazz has kept pace with the ever-changing American culture, evolving and migrating in directions hardly imagined by those musicians in turn of the century New Orleans. Its African-American derived influences, its rhythmic drive and improvisatory freedom continue vitalizing jazz's drive forward as it blends with contemporary culture. Jazz music is now heard in cultures around the world.
"Blues developed in the southern United States after the American Civil War (1861-65) and was largely played by Southern black men, most of whom came from the milieu of agricultural workers."
