Word: fusions
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Says Avant-Garde Musician Rivers: "It's not really in the tradition because the tradition is the solo voice. Fusion never goes anywhere." West Coast Jazz Pianist Paul Potyen thinks that most fusion albums have lost the sense of jazz's uniquely personal sounds and interactions. "The 'in' cuts are really slick; they're turning out musical TV dinners," he says...
...good news, however, is that many new fans have reached jazz through fusion. They began by listening to such groups as Blood Sweat and Tears and Chicago, which moved toward jazz in the '60s as some jazz began moving toward rock...
Once that audience got as far as fusion, it often went still further back in time and finally arrived at "pure" jazz. Says Producer Orrin Keepnews, whose Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone label has put out major rereleases: "If we narrow the gap with fusion, we will have accomplished something large...
Pianists Hancock and Corea defend their fusion music as a logical extension of the jazz musician's fascination with sound. In 1973, when jazz was suffering the financial blues, Hancock had the idea of using the synthesizer's weird, spacey sound not with the complex experimental music that he was then making but with funk and rhythm-and-blues. It turned into Head Hunters, made up of more conventional music that "a lot of people liked." Corea went roughly the same route. His recent Mad Hatter album, a lush blend of strings that borders on background music...
Most Americans have never heard the free sounds of progressive jazz. The reason is simple: major record companies tend to produce old reliables and lucrative fusion music; they are unwilling to promote the experimental edge. A few of the best progressive practitioners, among them Jarrett and Trumpeter Don Cherry, 41, record in Europe. One of the few outfits supporting this hard-to-absorb music is New York's nonprofit New Music Distribution Service. Says Drummer Beaver Harris, one of the artists who uses the service: "What the major record companies produce isn't always what's happening...