The Supernova that was Jazz-Rock Fusion

Australian David Allen was a conduit of Beat Generation-Bohemian ideas and behaviours whose influence on Jazz-Rock Fusion manifested themselves not only in his band Gong's musical exploits but in the number of young British and French artists whose careers he inspired, encouraged, and/or launched. In 1961 David Allen rented a room in Lydden (near Dover) from the Wyatt family. A cultured and educated man from a nouveau riche farming family, he was already well into his thirties when he reached England. Already a man of the world, a man with a purpose (that was inspired by Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation), he had had quite a run as a bohemian and was quite a proponent of (and quite experienced in) the world of mind-altering psychedelics. He had also had quite along history in the arts: as a stage performer, poet and poetry reader, guitarist and musician, theater actor and chaotic avant entertainer, even self-publisher as a humourist. He had already lived in Paris, but had yet to...

With the emergence of "progressive rock" and "jazz-rock fusion" in the UK and USA, the jazz scene in Germany certainly took notice; the German "engineering" mind definitely latched onto the sudden outburst of electronic sound modification occurring the 1950s and 1960s while also taking the lead with the sound recording and engineering advances that followed. Out of these phenomena there also sprouted in Germany three forms of musical expression that became very popular--forms that, in fact, became associated with their German participants due to the numbers of German participants and pioneers. The Berlin School of Electronic Music -  One of these forms involved the increasing reliance on experimental sound making using electronically-generated sounds and rhythms--often with sequencers and synthesizers dominating. It is a recognizable style that became known as Berlin School Electronica due to the presence of a number of Berlin-based or Berlin-recording art...

  THE FREE SPIRITS  Out of Sight and Sound Recorded for ABC Records by the legendary jazz team of Rudy Van Gelder and Bob Thiele sometime late in 1966 (the band members had only started hanging out in June, soon jamming--mostly at a Manhattan club called Scene which was located near the theater district. (The band members claim that they performed a total of perhaps 30 times.) The release of The Free Spirits' album, entitled Out of Sight and Mind , occurred in  early 1967 , probably in January. Though considering himself a protégé of Gábor Szabó, The Free Spirits was Larry Coryell's first New York City band since his move from Seattle in 1965. Though all of the band members had backgrounds in playing jazz music  (especially drummer Bob Moses and excepting Coryell's friend Columbus "Chip" Baker) , Larry Coryell steered their music toward the electrified free-form chaos that rock and roll was moving toward. (Artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, The Rollin...

  July 1955 -   Miles Davis performs for the first time at   The Newport Jazz Festival . This event is considered to be one of the most significant to the history of music. August 17, 1959 -  Blue Note Records releases  Miles Davis '  Kind of Blue . February 1960 -  Atlantic Records releases  John Coltrane 's  Giant Steps . March 1961 -  Atlantic Records releases  John Coltrane 's  My Favorite Things , an album whose sales and radio play proved that jazz music had a place in pop culture. January 1965 -  Impulse! Records releases  John Coltrane 's  A Love Supreme . The record was recorded in one day, December 9, 1964. January 1966 -  release of  The Free Spirits '   Out of Sight and Sound ,  Larry Coryell 's first New York City band's miserable (and failed) attempt at capturing their dynamic live sound in a studio setting. September 18, 1966 -  Day three of  The Monterey Jazz Festival...

  In the 1950s, AM radio stations, with their music, news, weather, and advertising formats, were popping up in increasing numbers. Many of these stations were playing and promoting the new  R&B  and  "rock and roll" sounds because that's what the Post-War kids were interested in. As the population base shifted  (with the Post-War "Baby Boom"), t he demographics of record sales were shifting to a younger population base--this despite the shift in pop culture toward the "new" visual form of entertainment: television.      At the same time, the face and sound of jazz was shifting: away from the ubiquitous big bands swingin' dance hall tunes. A more sophisticated, cerebral style of jazz was rising and evolving--with  smaller combos of drums, bass, piano, and a horn (or two) taking over as the artists' more preferred performative milieu. With this more serious, more introspective outpouring of music, the popularity of jazz music was beginning...

  In the 1960s the town of Canterbury, County Kent, England, became a source for the creative exploration of a loose, countercultural, even humorous take on jazz music--a form of progressive jazz music that we can look back upon now and see was really just an offshoot of the experimental fusing of elements of jazz, classical, folk and rock music that became known as Jazz-Rock Fusion. Paul Winter and bands like Popol Vuh, Oregon, Shakti, and CoDoNa explored a particular vein of jazz-rock fusion that tried to imbue their music with the sounds and traditions of ethnic or world musics. It seems as if the Canterbury Style artists were trying to explore a loose, quirky, humorous and yet cerebral and quintessentially British side of fusing ideas of free jazz and popular British comedy. It wasn't really a "scene" in Canterbury that promoted or attracted artists of this mindset, it was more like an esprit or zeitgeist that wafted from Canterbury around the world--as well as a set ...

  The end of Herbie Hancock's  Mwandishi -era team lineup is officially an Eddie Henderson album due to Eddie's leadership (initiative, funding, and role as principle composer), and it's another great one. (The next of Eddie's album's, 1975's  Sunburst , again has a great lineup of young and seasoned jazz musicians--including Bennie Maupin and George Duke--but there is a radical shift in musical styles toward a more radio- and sales-friendly "smooth" or "funky/disco" jazz fusion that became popular in the mid-70s.) Recorded in San Francisco in October of 1973, the album wasn't mastered and released until 1974--long after Herbie had called it quits on the head-in-the-clouds, atmosphere-exploring Mwandishi septet. (Herbie recorded his first album with a new funk/R&B lineup of four in September, 1973. The album,  Head Hunters , was released on October 13 or October 26 [depending on sources] to become the biggest selling jazz album of all...

Patrick Gleeson grew up in Seattle, taking piano lessons from age six but soon found himself interested, at a very young age, in jazz music. Dreaming of a career as a jazz pianist, he began taking the initiative to try to learn jazz piano--even trying to teach himself from Mary Lou Williams ' jazz piano books--but then quit music for 15 years when his parents and piano instructor refused to back his pursuit of jazz studies. So he turned his energies to his school studies, earning a Bachelor's degree (unconfirmed; perhaps from the University of Washington?), and then a PhD in 18th Century English literature from the University of California Berkeley (despite completing his dissertation--in 33 days--while working under the supervision of a favored [more liberal-minded] professor from the University of Washington). (Unconfirmed.) Upon securing a teaching position in the English Department at San Francisco State in the early 1960s, Patrick became active politically. He also began e...