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Overview

During the late 1960s and into the 1970s, there were many approaches to labeling jazz. These include jazz-rock, soul-jazz, jazz-funk or funky jazz, jazz-rock fusion, or the generic or all-encompassing term fusion. Moreover, there were different opinions as to the initial trailblazers that inspired these approaches to jazz.

Be ready to:

Identify several musicians who recorded and performed with Miles Davis who went on to form successful groups.

List the constituent sections of Birds of Fire by John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Identify several artists in soul-jazz.

Compare and contrast differences between jazz-rock and fusion with smooth jazz.

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Jazz-Rock 2

Miles Davis, Keith Jarret, Michael Henderson, Leon Ndugu Chancler, Gary Bartz, Charles Don Alias, James Forman.

Although other musicians and groups were experimenting with incorporating rock elements into jazz in the mid- to late 1960s, Miles Davis and his electric bands from the late 1960s are often considered the originators of jazz-rock. Davis's preexisting status as a jazz legend gave his early jazz-rock recordings a broad and immediate public exposure. He also pulled together groups of young but highly skilled musicians to support him in his early jazz-rock recordings. Many of those musicians became leaders and members of influential jazz-rock groups throughout the 1970s, notably guitarist John McLaughlin, pianists Joseph Zawinul, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and drummers Billy Cobham and Lenny White. We discuss them later in this lesson.

Miles Davis first began experimenting with jazz and different music styles in his 1969 album In A Silent Way. For example, the song " Shhh/Peaceful♫" incorporates the "straight rhythm" (performed throughout the piece), which is more characteristic of rock than of traditional jazz. In addition, an amplified guitar (starting at 00:05) is also more typical of rock. But it was not until his double album Bitches Brew (1970) that he committed himself entirely to the style, as heard in previous excerpts. Listen to him play the song "Bitches Brew" in the YouTube video below.

Miles Davis performing Bitches Brew (Live In Copenhagen, 1969)

Nat Wolff

Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon.

Wynton Marsalis

Jazz music is America's past and its potential, summed up and sanctified and accessible to anybody who learns to listen to, feel, and understand it. The music can connect us to our earlier selves and to our better selves-to-come. It can remind us of where we fit on the time line of human achievement, an ultimate value of art.