Popular Jazz fusion

[SecondBass]

I remember the stuff back at the end of the 70s, start of the 80s. You know the stuff: Kenny G; Crusaders; Weather Report; Herbie Hancock etc.

I actually hated it and it put me off the words Jazz and Fusion for quite a long time. My ultimate in hate was Spyro Gyra. It all seemed so wet. I don't mind a few of these things now (must be getting older) but the more interesting stuff from that time passed me by.

What are your pet-hates?

[John Watt]

One thing that doesn't help the business is bands misrepresenting themselves to make money. When glam-rock kept going while rock faded, you know, big hair, make-up, stripper image and public addictions, too many of these bands hid behind radio-friendly ballads to have a hit on the charts. But when girls or families who liked the song came to see the band, they were part of a heavy metal crowd. Just like after Woodstock, rock promoters decided they didn't need chairs anymore or an open field was good enough. That didn't help the business either.

Al Thurston, a Port Colborne sax friend of mine, and his band were signed and promoted at the same time Spyro Gyra was. His band was punchier, but he developed Bell's Palsy and had to quit for years. Spyro Gyra kept going to much acclaim. You were naming excellent musicians with laid back rhythms, "jazz fusion" at the time being better than Traffic's "the low spark of high-heeled boys" or Manfred Mann's Part Four. At least they didn't have to start chewing off the heads of animals onstage to keep it going, or lay down all night on their back to perform, like Cream, Led Zep, etc.

I see SecondBass, but where are you at? Bass? You'd need an E.Q.'d fifteen with four tens or an eighteen with four twelves to meld with me to create a quantum singularity of harmony.
And as Judy Garland often said: "How do I get offstage?"

[sunwaiter]

my pet-hates today is a large part of the french song scene. i'm talking about what they're trying to sell us on tv and radio, of course. it's all about looks and vocal performance, way beyond aretha franklin's high notes. my musical nemesis could be a beast that has the head of celine dion and the breast of mariah carey.

i also can't stand all this craze about and around gypsy style guitars, "manouche" style. i play guitar, and i listen and play a lot of styles, as much as my skills allow me. but sometimes, it seems people make music just to be cool and to be listened and SEEN as viable artists, when they can do so many other things, for a change.

i used to be tough towards what we call disco. now from time to time i like a bit of it.

i still can't understand what pleasure i can draw from some jazz artists, whom i respect though. i won't start a list of names. music is something so very subjective.

i used to ignore what happened on the hip-hop scene in the early nineties, in the us, in france and uk. today i listen lots of wu tang, cypress hill, tribe called quest, de la soul, etc.

i realized i needed to let the music get old, around ten or fifteen years of maturation in crates, to really appreciate it.

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha sunwaiter,

You mean 15 years of maturation in a cask...

Al Dimeola and Jean-Luc Ponty introduced me to Jazz fusion and I can still listen to their music everso often.

Cheers,

CD

[John Watt]

Sunwaiter mentioned pet hates. I got into it from my rock concert perspective, and Corno Dolce reminded me of another. Clone bands. Hey, you said Al Dime-ola. He earned that nickname here. A lot of guitarists, me and my friends included, went to see him at Kleinhann's in Buffalo, after Return to Forever had been gone for a while. He stood up front by himself with a clone band, a keyboardist playing Chick Corea parts and even a bassist, tall and skinny looking like Stanley Clarke, playing an Alembic bass too. All Al did was stand there louder than everyone else, riffing away single note speed riffs, looking bored and paunchy. The audience shouted for him to turn down. He didn't say much, the band wasn't getting into it behind him, and it was one of the worst performances I've heard.

I used to watch Merv Griffin when I got home from grade school. He always sang and had bands and talked to his musicians. For a while he had Chick Corea playing solo grand piano on once a week. I've been listening to him ever since. Merv talked about himself with a contemporary recording artist who asked him why he wasn't putting out albums. Merv said when he was younger, he had just released a novelty song with a big band, finally making it on the charts, when he heard rock'n'roll bands and saw the kid's reaction. Investing in radio stations to play this new music made him rich, so he could afford his own live T.V. show. He talked about equipment too, and the first thing I did when I moved to Toronto as a musician in the early 70's was buy a brand new Shure SM58 mike just like Merv's. That became the industry standard for rock, what Jimi Hendrix used with SM57's, and I never had to throw one away. Carrying your own mike, like Merv said, might not have had the same breathing someone else's germs concern that there is now, but everything he said still works for me. Just a little Jimi Hendrix and Merv Griffin duality, with me aging in the, not crate or cask, but case.

The head of Celine Dion, the breast of Mariah Carey, the arms of Amy Winehouse, the hips of Britney Spears, and the legs, the legs, oh... Cyd Charisse. I gotta be real about those. She was on Merv Griffin too. And Sunwaiter, as far as music appreciation goes. One thing I do is stand at the back, or sit at the end of the bar and drum along with the music. That helps you get into it, getting a feel from the beat so you can enjoy yourself even if the soloing leaves you cold. Singing along is always fun, and I've never been asked to be quiet, sometimes leading a dance floor. But please, don't get me wrong. I've never sung along to a jukebox and only did karaoke while lettering in a bar, asked to help start the night for a free meal. Some dualities are best left being separated.

[sunwaiter]

i wonder if any singer would be interested in those fields:

www.myspace.com/olivortex

you tell me