Jazz/Rock Fusion

As jazz developed its cannon and rock and roll filled its role as America’s popular music, a new crossover began between the two musical styles. This musical crossover eventually became known as fusion in the jazz community beginning around 1965. Jazz began to import rock’s instruments, volume, and stylistic delivery.

Like bop, fusion did not occur without controversy. As jazz was establishing its legitimacy, it was taking a risk by fusing with rock. Rock also represented a generational division in the American profile. It accompanied the emergence of the post- World War II baby boom to adolescence. It was the first associated exclusively with the young generation and worked as a banner distinction. Its further association with the social and political polarity of the 1960s tended to reinforce the generation lines. Jazz criticism at that time was founded in the swing and, to a lesser extent, the bop traditions. Rock fusion represented a commercialization of an emerging American art form. As the popularity of rock was carried by the baby boom into the adult listening market, its possible fusion seemed guaranteed.

The earliest notable fusion experiments happened again under the guidance of Miles Davis in his albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. This later album included players who later form the most popular fusion groups.

The most prominent later fusion groups belonged to former Davis players, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, and Wayne Shorter. At the time, this style offered a new virtuosity which, like earlier technical approaches, has become a part of common practice.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity