Jazz Fussion recommendations

[1280almas]

Hello, Jazz Fussion is my favorite music these days, especially when I drive. The band I like the most is Metro with Mitchel Forman, Chuck Loeb, Wolfgang Haffner and Mel Brown/Anthony Jackson/Victor Bailey.
I've been somewhat lost since Area Reservada (R3 Spain) disappeared and after the death of Antonio Fernandez.

If anyone could make me any recommendations I would be very grateful, all the best.
Simon

 

[Harris HTM]

Hello, Jazz Fussion is my favorite music these days, especially when I drive. The band I like the most is Metro with Mitchel Forman, Chuck Loeb, Wolfgang Haffner and Mel Brown/Anthony Jackson/Victor Bailey.
I've been somewhat lost since Area Reservada (R3 Spain) disappeared and after the death of Antonio Fernandez.

If anyone could make me any recommendations I would be very grateful, all the best.
Simon

Anything from Weather Report, especially from the era when Mighty Jaco played with them.

 

[DocCasualty]

Weather Report and Return to Forever remain favorites of mine too. Saw Weather Report in the late 70s and Jaco Pastorius was amazing.

For variety I recommend an internet MyRadio station out of the Ukraine, Jazz-Rock Fusion. There is a mobile app for your smart phone for listening in the car.

http://streema.com/radios/Jazz_Rock_and_Fusion_My_Radio_Jazz_Rock_and

 

[Doctor Strange]

I was into this kind of music back in the 70s/80s, but I eventually got over it. I went to concerts by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Spyro Gyra, and David Benoit, and I had lots of records by folks like Tom Scott, Dave Grusin, Bob James, Chuck Mangione...

But I eventually found the whole "smooth jazz" thing was mostly too superficial and slick for me, and much of it lacked the emotional underpinnings that good music really requires. I still listen to older jazz styles, but essentially nothing produced after the late 60s. But hey, if you dig it, that's cool.

 

[belfastboy]

I was into this kind of music back in the 70s/80s, but I eventually got over it. to concerts by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Spyro Gyra, and David Benoit, and I had lots of records by folks like Tom Scott, Dave Grusin, Bob James, Chuck Mangione...

But I eventually found the whole "smooth jazz" thing was mostly too superficial and slick for me, and much of it lacked the emotional underpinnings that good music really requires. I still listen to older jazz styles, but essentially nothing produced after the late 60s. But hey, if you dig it, that's cool.

One of my fave CD's is a Jazz/Classical fusion disc. Complementary Colors by Corkie Siegel (ex Chicago blues guy from the 60's) and Chambet

 

[belfastboy]

Chambet"belfastboy, post: 2261118, member: 34949"]One of my fave CD's is a Jazz/Classical fusion disc. Complementary Colors by Corkie Siegel (ex Chicago blues guy from the 60's) and Chambet[/QUOTE]
Chamber Blues...it is a blues/jazz/classical fusion

 

[vitanola]

I was into this kind of music back in the 70s/80s, but I eventually got over it. I went to concerts by Mahavishnu Orchestra, Spyro Gyra, and David Benoit, and I had lots of records by folks like Tom Scott, Dave Grusin, Bob James, Chuck Mangione...

But I eventually found the whole "smooth jazz" thing was mostly too superficial and slick for me, and much of it lacked the emotional underpinnings that good music really requires. I still listen to older jazz styles, but essentially nothing produced after the late 60s. But hey, if you dig it, that's cool.

Criminy! This stuff was in it's heyday when I was in college. Very popular among the "in" crowd. Even so, I never warmed to it, preferring pre-war Hot Jazz. Spiro Gyra seems pretty weak tea when compared to Louis' "West End Blues", Bix and Tram playing "For No Reason At All in C", Jimmie Noone & His Apex Club Orchestra playing, say, "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me", or even (for sheer chaotic youthful exuberance) Gowans Rhapsody Makers waxing of "I'll Fly to Hawaii".

 

[vitanola]

I agree Doctor Strange, for some Jazz purists, "Jazz fussion" may be very wicked and full of arrangements but the variety is endless.
I personally have tried to listen the classics many times but did not hook me up.
Thank you belfastboy!
Lito Vitale from Argentina is one of my favorites

"Arrangements" are not necessarily bad, after all. Any chart by, say, Fletcher Henderson, Bill Challis, Don Redman or even Eddie Sauter is worth a second look.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Criminy! This stuff was in it's heyday when I was in college. Very popular among the "in" crowd. Even so, I never warmed to it, preferring pre-war Hot Jazz. Spiro Gyra seems pretty weak tea when compared to Louis' "West End Blues", Bix and Tram playing "For No Reason At All in C", Jimmie Noone & His Apex Club Orchestra playing, say, "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me", or even (for sheer chaotic youthful exuberance) Gowans Rhapsody Makers waxing of "I'll Fly to Hawaii".

Gotta agree big-time on this, and your comment about solid arrangements too. (Don't forget Marylou Williams.)

I was a fan of the early Louis and Bix records - I owned the multiple-LP Columbia sets for both - and plenty of thirties swing and fifties cool, well before my flirtation with fusion. That was really more about my (now ex-)wife's, and one of my (now ex-)best friend's, taste than mine. I recognized that most of it was slick and superficial with little musical value and far less gutbucket emotion than "real" jazz. But it was okay background music for a while... before I ended up splitting with both of them!

 

[vitanola]

Gotta agree big-time on this, and your comment about solid arrangements too. (Don't forget Marylou Williams.)

I was a fan of the early Louis and Bix records - I owned the multiple-LP Columbia sets for both - and plenty of thirties swing and fifties cool, well before my flirtation with fusion. That was really more about my (now ex-)wife's, and one of my (now ex-)best friend's, taste than mine. I recognized that most of it was slick and superficial with little musical value and far less gutbucket emotion than "real" jazz. But it was okay background music for a while... before I ended up splitting with both of them!

Those Columbia LP sets exposed me to the good stuff in my school days, but by the time I was in college I had discovered the allure of shellac. Most of the great stuff is available on wartime shellac reissue albums in the Columbia Jazz Masterwork series. Other important Brunswick, Vocalion, and Gennett sides may be found on the contemporaneous Brunswick reissue series put out by Decade, and then of course there are the myriad alternate takes of Victor stuff which were initially put out on Bluebird, but which ultimately ended up on Victor's Hot Jazz Classic and Swing classic series. Then of course we are the excellent and plentiful Parlophone reissues of the 1940s and 1950s.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I don't doubt that they're great, but alas, I never made the leap to collecting 78s.

As it is, I'm the King of Obsolete Media - I still play LPs, cassettes, CDs, Super 8 film, 16mm film, VHS tapes, DVDs... and I've got dozens of reel-to-reel tapes I made in the 70s and 80s, but I haven't owned that kind of deck for a while... In a world where seemingly everyone now just streams digital audio/video from the cloud or has them residing on iThings, I insist on owning a piece of physical media that I can put on the shelf!

So, I may not play 78s, but I am WAY behind the culture, media-wise - I don't even have (or want) a smartphone. Well, I was always a hardcore non-conformist who ran in the opposite direction from whatever was popular and "normal"... and my observation is that we only become more refined versions of ourselves as we age.

(PS - I'm also a huge Sinclair Lewis fan, so I grok "Gopher Prairie"!)

 

[vitanola]

I don't doubt that they're great, but alas, I never made the leap to collecting 78s.

As it is, I'm the King of Obsolete Media - I still play LPs, cassettes, CDs, Super 8 film, 16mm film, VHS tapes, DVDs... and I've got dozens of reel-to-reel tapes I made in the 70s and 80s, but I haven't owned that kind of deck for a while... In a world where seemingly everyone now just streams digital audio/video from the cloud or has them residing on iThings, I insist on owning a piece of physical media that I can put on the shelf!

So, I may not play 78s, but I am WAY behind the culture, media-wise - I don't even have (or want) a smartphone. Well, I was always a hardcore non-conformist who ran in the opposite direction from whatever was popular and "normal"... and my observation is that we only become more refined versions of ourselves as we age.

(PS - I'm also a huge Sinclair Lewis fan, so I grok "Gopher Prairie"!)

Get yourself a nice Orthophonic Victrola, Electrola, or a quality early Post-War radio-phonograph combination and some appropriate records and you will never look back (or forward!)

As for groking Gopher Prairie, try living here sometime. It is very pleasant once one gets over onesself.

 

[MisterCairo]