
Jazz-Rock 1

Bitches Brew (1970) by Miles Davis
The term "jazz-rock" (best understood as combining elements of jazz and rock) describes a style of jazz that emerged in the late 1960s and flourished throughout the 1970s, becoming the most commercially successful style of jazz during that decade. It involved various musical techniques and sounds borrowed from rock styles of the late 1960s and 1970s. Musicians who combined elements of jazz and rock employed different methods typically associated with rock. These include distorted reverb effect in electric guitars (such as between 08:00-09:00 in "Bitches Brew" by Miles Davis), electric bass (such as starting at 02:51 in "Bitches Brew"), electric keyboards (such as starting at 03:50 in "Bitches Brew"), the reverbAn echo effect. effect (such as between 00:42-02:47 in " Bitches Brew "), and high volumes (such as sporadically between 01:30-02:42 in "Bitches Brew").
They also predominantly used "straight" eighth notes as opposed to "swing" eighth notes. Traditional jazz musicians play eighth notes such that the first of the pair is significantly longer than the second, resulting in what is called "swing" rhythm (such as at 01:24-01:50 in Ella Fitzerald's version of " It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing," 1957). Typically, the straight eighth notes of rock, and most jazz-rock, are of equal length (such as from 00:00-00:50 in " Born To Be Wild " 1968, by Steppenwolf). From jazz, jazz-rock musicians retained an emphasis on improvisational and virtuosic soloing, a nearly exclusive preference for instrumental (as opposed to vocal) music, and a tendency towards musical experimentation, all of which are heard throughout "Pharoah's Dance" (1970) by Miles Davis.
The idea of fusing elements of jazz and rock should not be confused with the style of rock that arose at roughly the same time, in which rock musicians incorporated various elements of jazz into their sound, but which still falls on the side of rock rather than jazz. This approach is best exemplified in the music of bands such as Chicago (“ Saturday in the Park," 1972) and Blood, Sweat & Tears (“Spinning Wheel ” 1968), to name a couple, who issued very successful rock albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, the element that most distinguishes these rock bands from jazz-rock is their use of vocals, horn sections, horn solos, and relatively complex arrangements set into a verse/chorus/bridge song structure, as heard in the songs above.