Word: musicalization
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...everyone: the cool sound of Pianist Bill Evans, 48, with his sophisticated classical harmonies; the loosely structured, rather chaotic-sounding "free" jazz of such revolutionaries as Ornette Coleman, 48, Cecil Taylor, 45, and Sam Rivers, 47. Master Pianists Chick Corea, 37, and Herbie Hancock, 38, were into "fusion" music, a blending of jazz with rock's electronic sound. A tribute to the Latin influence on jazz starred the formidable massed bands of Tito Puente and Machito. There was even a special last-minute entry: Irakere, a jazz-rock Cuban group whose members had been granted visas just in time...
...real gold dust is not in the oldies but in fusion, which is essentially watered-down jazz, with simpler chords and harmonies, traces of rhythm-and-blues and Latin music, and rock's heavy electronic sound and beat. Miles Davis, 52, who created the "cool" bop sound back in the late '40s, with its relaxed delivery and complex harmonies, also fashioned the first fusion in 1970 with his revolutionary Bitches Brew album. It retained jazz soloing but incorporated electric bass and guitar and a Rhodes electric piano. The result sounded mellow, upbeat and had a heavier rhythm than...
...jazz-rock field; its latest album, Heavy Weather, which rides sophisticated solos over rock rhythms, has sold half a million copies. But fusion, as Davis' original album title foretold, is a dangerous brew. It was a short step to what many traditional jazzmen bitterly refer to as crossover music...
Each new current in jazz has, of course, always faced opposition. The '30s swing music swung at the '40s bop; bop booed the experimental movements of the '50s and '60s. But many jazzmen feel that fusion is not true jazz-and they are right...
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...