Ironically, any guitar so called "aficianado" will tell you about clapton, jimmy page, hank marvin and all the icons who are of somewhat an iconic status, yet seem highly derivitive compared to some of the guitarist which came out of the jazz fusion camp.
You have to remember the landscape of music was dramatically altered during the early 60's to early 70's.
The advent of moog synthesizers, informed us of the sounds which were to become commonplace in music later on and today still. Rock and roll adversly shocked a whole generation of adolescents into submission, ultimately denotating any traces left of be bop jazz or broadway/easy listening music which was popular amongst the youth at the time.
It passed, quintets became skiffle groups, mods became the new wave of cool. You couldn't pick up any music publication or newspaper entertainment section without seeing the fab four or the rolling stones on the cover.
However, boiling away at the surface, rock music informed a lot of jazz musicians about crossover popularity, with the beatles incorporating sitars and the likes of eastern sounds to complement the sonic palette of the music.
Jazz saved people from alienation. What was swing became smaller due to amplification, huge swing bands proved too expensive to book, smaller groups playing at intimate venues such as downtown new york's mintons playhouse and such were the places to go instead. However the smaller it got, the more alienating the music seemed to be for people, it was reduced to smaller venues and there was more emphasis on pushing forward with improvisation than maintaining strong melodies, and this drew away crowds that loved dancing. People embraced this music by sitting back, usually people fond of instrumentation were more involved in the be-bop scene than your regular out going types.
Was it dying? Yes. Jazz died a little with the british invasion, in fact the first signs of it's partial decay was when Elvis came onto the scene. The King ignited everything. It was the cool thing. Jazz was now like on the fringe of everything, and within certain circles it was still appreciated, but while there was less vocalised jazz, people turned to the vocal stylings of a man that was melting hearts across the globe, and because of that Jazz was no longer at the forefront of music.
Along with musicals, Jazz as an art form was weird to people now. It was the musical equivilent of spoiled devondale milk in your fridge, it was good while it lasted, BUT IT GONE BAD!
In the mid sixties, although no one really noticed it, the cambridge scene was prominent in the U.K. A band called Soft Machine were incorporating elements of Jazz into their sound, creating a "fusion" sound. It was recognised as a novel approach and proved popular amongst the english music at the time.
The importance of such a man in music, whom I'm about to write about, is probably biased and exaggerated because of the fact that the writer is a huge fan. But nonetheless, Miles Davis has been often maligned by critics and fans for "abandoning his jazz origins", however this couldn't be further from the truth. If anything, he opened up to different sounds and embraced this by incorporating them into his own music. Jazz was in the doldrums, but Miles got Jazz out of there.
After meeting funk singer Betty Mabry in 1967, he turned to a more electric sound, incorporating fender rhoades keyboards and electric bass to his sound. It wasn't long before guitarist John Mclaughlin was recruited to play guitar on his albums.
The seminal release, 1970's Bitches Brew, is a watershed album. Considered to be one of the best, and also one of the worst Jazz albums of all time, depending on who you ask. It changed everything, and it's influence must not be overlooked in the canon of contemporary music.
Miles davis soon after this release played at rock festivals. That's right rock festivals. A trumpet player, in front of tens of thousands playing his music to the masses. Brass was back in, bands were beginnning to take the hint and started using saxophonists and brass on their albums. Chicago were using a horn section as part of their band, it influenced a number of different groups.
Jazz did rock a favour, and Rock did Jazz a favour in return. Rock and roll today without incorporating elements of Jazz, would prove to be stale. Because remember that synthesizers were also apart of the jazz fusion sound, and are utilised in rock music so much today.
The ebb and flow of music will always be, bands over-extending there experimental zone out jam 20 minute pieces,to three chord punchy straight to the point numbers. So it will be one for a while, until people get sick of it, and then will alternate.
But without the experimentation of fusion, today we might not of had that choice to choose from.
