A Comparative Analysis, Demystification, and a Set of Examples Which Hopefully Serve to Distinguish Between The Two. (Plus a preliminary treatise on the naming and usage of musical genres in general)
TERMS which supposedly describe musical styles are constantly being thrown around by people everywhere, every second of every day. These terms are often used as a cultural short-hand to save time explaining what one is talking about, when one is talking about music. Many people who think critically about music deride these terms, imagining that every single piece of music ever created is essentially unique, and that pigeonholing things into “genres” is a facile and superficial way of trying to impose order on the infinite.
Other music lovers embrace these descriptors, and endeavour enthusiastically to attach these cliched tags to any music they hear, reasoning that all music is somehow stylistically related to some other music that came before it; or perhaps related to something else that came after it.
To wit:
Person A: “what bands do you like?”
Person B: “I like Tull….”
Person A: “Oh so you like Prog?”
Person B: “Uh…I dunno man, I like all sorts of shit…..is Tull Prog?”
Some people want to enjoy music in peace, sans analysis, whereas others want to dissect the shit out of it and compare it to everything else and see how it all relates. We have seen how it is typical for a music journalist to categorize some musician’s music using one of these terms, and then how that very musician rejects such a categorization when they’re confronted with the same term in an interview. Vis,
“In all these years, I still haven’t figured out what Progressive Rock even means!”
- paraphrasing Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson
Well I’m sorry to say that I don’t believe that you
are really being sincere when you say that, Ian. Anyone such as yourself, who is clearly making some new kind of music, and releasing albums that are repeatedly being compared to other bands that make music that a whole bunch of different people all over the world also happen to like and find you stylistically similar to...and that those people consider your band to be in the same general category as, and when you’ve also done extensive tours where you shared the stage with many of those very bands – I hate to break it to you but you’re prog rock, and so is Yes, and so is Gentle Giant and King Crimson and ELP etc. Anyone in any of those bands who ever claimed that they weren’t Prog, or “don’t know what that even means”, was full of shit, and/or were pissed off about getting lumped in with guys that they met on tour and didn’t get along with or something.
My dear fusion fans: please don’t despair and lose interest now, just because I used Prog as an example to illustrate my thoughts on the general topic of Musical Idiom Names, aka Styles, Genres, etc.
“Everybody listen, you may not agree. But all y’all should try it one time and maybe you’ll see”
My dear fusion fans: please don’t despair and lose interest now, just because I used Prog as an example to illustrate my thoughts on the general topic of Musical Idiom Names, aka Styles, Genres, etc.
“Everybody listen, you may not agree. But all y’all should try it one time and maybe you’ll see”
– George Duke
This is not a paper about whether or not musical idiom names are good or not. They exist. They get used. We use them, and others use them. Sometimes we are disgusted by the sound of some ignorant person using such a term
incorrectly, just as sometimes we elicit a parallel reaction in others by doing same. Oftentimes, laughs result. Other times lifetime hatreds result. I recall a friend who was repulsed when he overheard a mutual acquaintance of ours introduce himself to some strangers by saying “hey man, I’m Bob. I’m a Drum n' Bass DJ”. That was eons ago but I still understand my friend’s pissed-off reaction to having heard that dude say that.
I think the whole thing can be summed up in the following sentence: Name dropping genres is lame; using genre names when you know what you’re talking about is ok.
END OF PREAMBLE
“There is Jazz-Rock, and then there is Fusion” - Michael McFuzak
Ever since people have been making music that blurs the borders of Jazz and Rock, critics have used the terms Jazz-Rock, and Jazz Fusion (henceforth just “Fusion”) to describe a vast and often wildly disparate universe of musical vibes. It is perhaps best to start off by citing examples that exemplify and epitomize the differences between these two fully legitimate and distinct musical genres. Here are some off the top of my head:
John Mclaughlin: Devotion is Jazz-Rock; Visions of The Emerald Beyond is Fusion.
Larry Coryell: Spaces is Jazz-Rock; Eleventh House is Fusion.
Miles Davis: Bitches Brew is Jazz-Rock; and nothing Miles did in the 70’s can really be called Fusion. In a Silent Way and Live Evil are also Jazz-Rock, but not fusion.
Weather Report: The first two albums are amazing Jazz-Rock; Heavy Weather is definitely Fusion. The ones in between are up for debate(??? -ed).
Return To Forever: Light as a Feather is “latin-tinged jazz rock”. Hymn of the 7th Galaxy is archetypal, epic Fusion. Where Have I Known You Before is also epic Fusion.
George Duke is sometimes straight-up Fusion; but often veering towards Funk-Fusion (a vast and varied genre which I’m not that versed in – Fishmongerfunk will have to expound further on that whole scene….)
Frank Zappa has some Fusion. Hot Rats is borderline Jazz-Rock / Fusion and it fucking rules hard…
Eberhard Weber “Fluid / Rustle” is European arty fusion and not at all Jazz-Rock; there is zero rock therein.
Jeff Beck Wired is Fusion (specifically Jock Fusion – more on that later, - Ed).
Cream and Traffic are sometimes Early Jazz-Rock.
Some of Joni Mitchell’s albums are Singer-Songwriter Jazz-Rock. (Don Juan’s, The Hissing of).
Steely Dan flirted with and simultaneously intertwined themselves with Fusion, but could also be generally considered to be anything ranging from Rock (Show Biz Kids), Jazz-Rock (Your Gold Teeth), Fusion Dabblers (Gold Teeth II Live) , True Fusion (end of Aja), etc SD SD SD SD
So that might give you some indication of where we, meaning the The Fusion Party Crew stand on the matter.
There will be more to follow.
Best,
M McF
PS: as a Rule Of Thumb for those just joining us,
RAW = JAZZ-ROCK
SLICK PRODUCTION = FUSION
Dear Mr. McFuzak, i have read your exposee at length here, with no shortage of interest or criticism.
ReplyDeleteI would like to agree with your simple dichotomization, as it certainly does make life easier to have facile, black-and-white solutions to our complex questions and problems. Having said that, I believe that your capitalized summaries with which you concluded your exposee were rashly composed and not properly thought out. Definitions are meant to provide outlines, boundaries for qualification; instead you give us only your subjective tautology, and back it up weakly.
Furthermore I think that the lines between the genres of jazz rock, fusion and prog-rock are, to put it politely, balderdash, for those who take their musical education seriously.
The distinction between "RAW" and "SLICK" production, i argue, is not relevant to a discussion of fusion, jazz-fusion, jazz-rock or prog rock on anything more than a semantic level. The terms RAW and SLICK, the way they are used here, are basically substitutes for PRE-1969 and POST-1969. In cases where the analogy is imprecise, they simply refer to works that were recorded in archaic studios lacking the ("slick") technology of modern ones. The presence of overdubbing, synthesizers, distortion, electronically-modified amplification, large-scale orchestral arrangements and the like, while they certainly changed the final sound of the music, are a byproduct of the passing of time not, as you would claim, the trappings of an entirely new genre.
ReplyDeleteBy simplifying your qualifiers thusly (raw/slick) you open yourself up to myriad interpretational problems: any number of post-1970 jazz albums certainly fall into your category of 'slick' (because they were recorded in modern studios) however they are far from being considered fusion. ie (just to throw out some names/ideas) Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea's 1978 album "An Evening With...", Hubert Laws' 1974 album "In the Beginning" or Brecker-Hargrove-Hancock's 2002 LP "Directions in Music". All of these albums can be seen as an attempt by traditional jazz musicians to use the modern and "slick" sounding studios that they now had access to in order to record works that were more closely related to traditional jazz than they were to jazz-rock or to fusion. The weakness of your tautology is that such works may end up being filed as fusion simply because they exhibit slick production values.
My second point was that these distinctions are B.S.. It is fun to write about them, especially when, like yourself, you are able to place yourself on a moral high ground where you can, without any contention, impose your streamlined view of reality upon the rest of us. However, I believe that those who take their musical education seriously should ponder another deeper question, namely "are the words 'jazz-rock' and 'fusion' mutually exclusive? are they interchangeable?"
ReplyDeleteLastly, I think what any musicologist should work towards is a definition of jazz-rock and fusion that rests on something more than your perception of various studio qualities. Songwriting, playing, arrangement, meaning -many other factors should be relevant to a work's classification.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind at least, 'jazz-rock' will be more likely to reference the main tenets of rock'n'roll: a 4/4 time signature; a prominent and relatively fast-paced backbeat; blues-based song arrangement that may allow for repeated playing of one riff or short melodic sequence. 'Fusion' on the other hand is a term that will be preferable to describe music that rests more comfortably on the basic attributes of jazz: strong structures that incorporate forms, often quite lengthy, with various instruments taking solos; experimentation with different time signatures, especially during changes; an emphasis on improvisation and spontaneity especially within solos.
I think that by applying a more complex system of qualifications to the works we can hope to educate ourselves a little better as to their distinctions, the roots of these distinctions, and their possible necessity or irrelevance. What good is your set of assumptions if you can't even define where Hot Rats fits in?
After thinking about this for precisely eleven years and one day, I've come to agree more with the "raw/slick" dichotomy. It's not a bad starting point.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, after much teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling, I've conclusively determined that jazz rock does not warrant a hyphen. Nor does jazz fusion.