1970s Jazz Fusion

Welcome back to the walkthrough history of Jazz! Through the 1960s and 70s, pop and rock music grew to a position where they dominated the music
business across the world.

Several jazz musicians drew on rock influences to develop their music. They included Larry Coryell (guitar), Gary Burton (vibraphone), Keith Jarrett (piano) and Jack DeJohnette (drums). But perhaps the most significant move came from Miles Davis, arguably the greatest jazz innovator. He was keen to draw from this ‘new’ music and started to explore the use of electric instruments.

Early in 1969 he released “In A Silent Way” featuring Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul and Chick Corea (electric piano/organ), Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Dave Holland (bass), John McLaughlin (electric guitar) and Tony Williams (drums). The album had a single track on each side. They are both languid, rather ethereal improvisations without a defined melody, built on riffs and grooves. This laid the foundation for Miles’ next release, “Bitches Brew”, which remains as one of the iconic jazz albums. The band members from these albums carried the jazz-rock ideas into their own bands, including the Mahavishnu Orchestra (McLaughlin), Lifetime (Williams) and Weather Report (Shorter/Zawinul). A number of major jazz-rock bands also saw real success through the 1970s including Colosseum, Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears and If. Perhaps the most successful jazz-rock band, both artistically and commercially, was Steely Dan. The coming together of jazz and rock in the early seventies proved to be a seminal moment, laying the foundations for the wonderfully diverse nature of jazz music today.

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