September 2009

Being disallowed from pursuing a proper recording career in jazz due to political affiliations and beliefs is hard to understand. The music form was – up until perhaps the ‘80s or so – flush with believers in causes as vast and plentiful as each stylistic derivation of the genre. Clifford Thornton, though, apparently had a hard time finding imprints to release his work.

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O’Donel Levy’s foray into a more mainstream jazz, funk and soul style has been compared to that of George Benson. Both guitarists, no doubt, sport some talent as well as a good ear for gritty stuffs. But as each moved passed the beginning of their careers the music produced got bogged down by nonsense. There are moments from both men’s catalogs that still genuinely rule subsequent to some pandering, but nothing would ever hit as hard as the first few release from either guitarist. Regardless of that, Levy, after the release of Simba went onto put out music that was rather disdainful to my ears.

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Being one of the most distinctly American art forms of the 20^th century, jazz had a style that surrounded its music scene – whether it was a manner of dressing, speech, a set of social norms or an aesthetic of the physical albums that were released. At the head of this broadening music trend was Blue Note Records.

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Of all the jazz sub-genres it’s easy to figure that fusion not only gets maligned the most frequently, but it also deserves it. Verbose musicians indulging themselves for twenty minutes at a time and endlessly meandering through self fulfilling solos won’t always be able to sustain an audience - and it shouldn’t.

Listed below are a few things expected on a compendium of this nature, but also a few that warrant a bit more attention. It would of course be impossible to compose a piece on fusion without mentioning these folks, but some of the most lauded works in the genre really do need to be rethought.

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The history of American music gets pretty confused at points. There wasn’t ever – nor was there intended to be – a sort of delineation of genres. It was surely a marketing construct. I mean what musician would have ever stated, “I play race music.” Utter nonsense, but apparently necessitated by not just the northern recording companies, but folks that weren’t all too sure about black folks comingling with prim and proper whites. Despite all of the ridiculous stipulations added into the music of the early 20th century, there’s little doubt that some of the bigger names from jazz and blues still have resonance today.

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