Exploring musical connections one track at a time…
Category is: skull-crushing breakbeats. Enter the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose high-intensity fusion of psychedelia, prog and jazz took the rock world by storm with its explosive debut The Inner Mounting Flame in 1971, which according to critic Richard S. Ginell “may have been the cause of more blown-out home amplifiers than any other record this side of Deep Purple.”
Continue reading “Mahavishnu Orchestra – Vital Transformation”
Happy International Jazz Day 2020! After a spell of beautiful spring sunshine, the British weather has gone back to its usual rainy habits. What better way therefore to celebrate with another Herbie track released a couple of years prior to his funky ‘Hang Up Your Hang Ups’.
Continue reading “Herbie Hancock – Rain Dance”
Our last two posts focused on Max Roach and Charles Mingus, who (along with Mingus’ wife Celia) founded the short-lived Debut Records, designed to bypass the commercialism of major labels. Both musicians had played with the great Duke Ellington, though Mingus’ stint lasted a mere four days before being fired for – you guessed it – fighting.
Continue reading “Duke Ellington – Money Jungle”
Who better to lead us into the weird world of Miles Davis than his biographer, Ian Carr? We heard his electric Miles-inspired jazz-rock on ‘Torrid Zone’, and Bitches Brew (1970) is more or less fusion ground zero. Influenced by the music of Jimi Hendrix – and pissed off that rock stars were making more money than him without the musical ability – Davis mixed the aggression of rock with the most experimental aspects of jazz to create an album that sounded like neither genre, producing something closer to alien funk.
Continue reading “Miles Davis – Bitches Brew”
The year before The Ahmad Jamal Trio performed their composition ‘Bogota’ at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, a small group of British musicians by the name of Nucleus showcased compositions which pioneered a new sound, one that blended jazz with influences from rock and funk, now defined as ‘jazz-rock’ or ‘fusion’. This radical new approach to jazz saw the group win first prize at the festival and was responsible, along with a few other notable albums, in ushering jazz away from the modal and post-bop sounds of the 60s and into the psychedelic, funky fusion of the 70s.
Continue reading “Nucleus – Torrid Zone”