Jazz-Rock

As rock music became the dominant popular music of the 1960s and onwards, it was inevitable that jazz would incorporate its influences and styles. As with so many developments in jazz, Miles Davis was an early explorer and influencer with Bitches Brew being a seminal album in jazz-rock. Many of the players on Miles’ famous record went on to be major players in the emerging jazz-rock scene. Chick Corea formed Return To Forever, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul created Weather Report while British guitarist John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra leaned more towards the progressive rock side of fusion.

Characterised by the use of electric instruments (including effects-laden brass), jazz-rock is a high energy hybrid that embraced developments in rock. And the influences were two-way. Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats is hugely jazz-inflected while a new generation of guitarists who’d grown up with rock were forming their own outfits to play this complex and exciting music.

Some key names are guitarists Larry Coryell, John Scofield, and John Abercrombie, keyboard players Jan Hammer and Dave Stewart, and drummers Billy Cobham and Tony Williams.