Word: jazzing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...growth of jazz, however, has not always been so assured. In the 1960s jazz became ingrown and uncertain. Musicians have always regarded each other suspiciously across the generations. In the '30s, Dixieland distrusted swing. In the '40s, swing mocked bop. In the '50s, when people like Stan Kenton and Dave Brubeck were experimenting with progressive harmonies and other far-out ideas, many audiences found the music too cerebral...
Best of Rock. With the eruption of the '60s, jazz succumbed almost entirely to rock. "Rock was popular because it was easy," recalls jazz-rock pianist Herbie Hancock. "The jazz of the '60s was complicated, atonal and difficult, if not impossible, to sing. There was no way to participate in it as there was in rock. You could dance to rock, but not to the jazz of that period; jazz did evoke a certain feeling, but it was hard to pinpoint it in those dense sound clusters and complex rhythms. And so people walked away with a feeling...
...seemed to some serious musicians and sated (if not bored) audiences that much of rock lacked any redeeming value beyond offering the opportunity to an appalling number of untalented children to become millionaires simply by raising an electronically amplified ruckus. In the early '70s, jazz, with its capacity for self-renewal, began to use the best of rock. Trumpeter Miles Davis launched the era of jazz rock with an LP album, Bitches Brew, that combined his avant-garde jazz style with rock's electronic sounds and driving rhythms. Davis' daring not only kindled a new form but also reawakened audiences...
Thus, older jazz musicians today no longer hesitate to participate in the evolutionary process. Zoot Sims, 50, the veteran tenor saxophonist, now straddles all styles. Benny Carter, 68, has lent the silken sounds of his alto sax to the torchy voice of thirtyish pop singer Maria Muldaur. Drummer Grady Tate, 44, pounds out extraordinary admixtures of jazz beats and shifting, rocky rhythms...
...younger musicians are also engaged in this kind of cross-fertilization. Chick Corea, 35, a Miles Davis alumnus with a reputation for lyrical introspection on the piano, now leads a group called Return to Forever, one of the first electronic jazz bands to reach a mass rock audience. Bassist Stanley Clarke, 25, trained in the classics, combines breathtaking technical acrobatics with Coltrane-style solos. British-born John McLaughlin, 34, plays America's most supercharged guitar, pouring out majestic chords at breakneck tempos in a hybrid concoction of hard rock, Indian music and 32-bar blues. Weather Report, a five...