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Fusion- HELP!

A

Anex

Señor Member
My new music teacher is really into fusion- aside from Metalica, Pantera and Stravinsky that seems to be all I listen to. He seems convinced I came to him to become a fusion player and keeps trying to get me to put a million notes into all my compositions where as I'd prefer to let a small well chosen handful do the work.
I've tried to convince him I have no interest in playing fusion, aside from it being a good learning experience through the sheer technicality, but its not working so can someone give me some recommendations please? Surely some of it is listenable?:confused: All the stuff he has played to me sounds like Dream Theatre/Marillion -seemingly random jumps in time, mode etc. and just as they play something interesting they go and spoil it somehow. Am I not getting it or is it just an excercise in showing off how many time signatures you can solo in and how many hybrid modes you know?

EDIT: I don't mind earlier Fusion type stuff, Bitches Brew, Tutu etc. (I assume they're classed as fusion anyway) but this newer stuff just does nothing for me atm
 
Got that, its nothing like it. I can't really describe this stuff, most of it is far more recent, I just can't hear anything in it, to me it sounds like its right up its own arse but I don't know if its me just not getting it. Its definately along the dream theatre lines but they aren't a band I particularly enjoy listening to aside from the odd track, all very clever but not musically very interesting to me.
 
Fusion is one of the most sterile and worthless art-**** genres ever.

Seriously, avoid it.

DS
 
For Headhunters type fusion, I'd say Herbie Hancock's (I think under the Mwandishi Band name) Sextant is the best. It's like a funk rock version of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra.

Chick Corea's Return to Forever is the only thing I can think of that's really good, so long as you're into grimy, waffly atmosphere. But it's prog latin jazz more than fusion, there are no guitars or synths on it, and no wacky time/tempo changes slapped in the middle of the good bits (why do people do this? what pleasure is it supposed to being the listener?).
 
Cheers for that Kit - just read the review on Amazon - sounds great:
Recorded with the sly, space-funky band that Herbie Hancock formed as Mwandishi, Sextant is one of those cornerstone jazz collections. It ranks with the best early, electric fusion for its fuzzing of textures, always used as bedrock for killer, roomy solos. A troika of horn greats can take much of the credit for the solos: trombonist Julian Priester, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and saxophonist Bennie Maupin. Each generates great, dense ideas without betraying Hancock's eerie ambience and funky vibe. Yes, this is an aggregation of many 1970s-era ideas: renewed sense of Africanisms (at least in the band's naming), intensified percussive underpinnings, and a heap of rumbly rhythms that give props to everyone in neofunk jazz from Clyde Stubblefield to Funkadelic, albeit in a slowed, methodically rhythmic vein. Hancock's keyboards make fine clouds, as well as slinking shuffles. --Andrew Bartlett

Description
SEXTANT is a perfect example of how CD reissues of long outof print records can gain more respect when brought to the broader, modern context. The first recording Hancock made for Columbia and the last one done with his Mwandishi octet, agroup deeply under the influence of Miles Davis' experimentation with electronics and global polyrhythms, SEXTANT was dismissed upon its release as a fusion-absorbed bastardisation of jazz forms and melody-free dead ends. But heard throughmodern ears seduced by Miles' global funk and Brian Eno's soundscapes, it's a revelation, forecasting a future that mayor may not have anything to do with Jazz.
It starts witha flurry of backbeats amidst a funk bottom, as bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart swing wickedly on midtempo grooves and percussionist Buck Clarke adds a light layer of speedier rhythms. Bennie Maupin, Eddie Henderson and Julian Priester's horns keep the music at least slightly groundedin the electric jazz idiom. Still, the true alchemists in this sonic play are Hancock (strapped in a cockpit of keyboards and synthesizers, orchestrating the chaos) and synthesizer technician Patrick Gleason, whose special effects impregnate these three tracks with a futurism beyond its years.
Click to expand...
 
DSS. How bloody useful was your comment? If you don't like fusion then knob off.

Anyway, a few more suggestions off the top of my hung-over head: early Pat Metheny, some solo Bill Bruford/Earthworks, Return to Forever, the Jaco Pastorius solo album, Alan Holdsworth, Larry Carlton.
 
Anex, the original poster said,

"I've tried to convince him I have no interest in playing fusion"

I was simply confirming his view, that fusion is a steaming pile of toss, and best avoided at all costs.

Fusion is to jazz as Prog is to Rock.

DS
 
dss said:
Anex, the original poster said,

"I've tried to convince him I have no interest in playing fusion"

I was simply confirming his view, that fusion is a steaming pile of toss, and best avoided at all costs.
Click to expand...


Hmmm I didn't actually say that, I just said I wasn't particularly into playing it, mainly cause I don't get it. Cheers for the suggestions, he has mentioned Pat Metheny so seems like a good place to start.
 
Try Isotope.
I'll think of some others later, getting drunk at the moment and away from home so unable to pore through my record collection.

Cheers!
 
funnily enough, the CD left in my player was Pat Metheny Group - still / life (talking) .

Of course since this thread, I have removed it and replaced it with another CD, Various Artists - The Belles Shall Sound Forever - A Tribute to Current 93.

DS
 
Anex

Maybe I missed it, but what instrument(s) are you learning? Let me know and I know that some things can be found.

Fusion isn't all about millions of notes/sec Mahavishnu Orch has some very frenetic and some beautifully slow songs on their albums.
 
lilolee said:
Anex
Mahavishnu Orch
Click to expand...

Ah that is one I recognise, he mentions them a lot. I'm a guitarist but the lessons are mainly theory rather than technique based, so any suggestions are welcome
 
The first guitarist that sprung to mind was Bill Connors, who played with Return to Forever prior to Al Di Meola. He was more into tune rather than the number of notes played.

Some may frown, but I also think Santana is well worth considering, especially Lotus.

Somebody slightly different would be Eivind Aarset, a modern almost soundscape style of Jazz guitar, well worth checking him out as a leader or playing with Nils Petter Molvear or Dafar Youssef. This should confound your teacher.

Somebody mentioned Isotope, that guitarist was Gary Boyle, who still tours up around the M62, as he is something to do with the Manchester School of Music.

The jazzier end of Blues is also worth considering and Roy Buchanan is the man

Can I suggest you join a smal group on Yahoo called FuseNet http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/fusenet/messages You can actually look at the posts but you may want to ask there. They are mostly musicians themselves, with a majority of guitarists, so may have specific pointers.
 
Land of the Midnight Sun by Al Di Meola is another worth checking out:



(despite the dodgiest of covers, ever!)

...as is Spectrum, by Billy Cobham:



(which has some of the classic jazz funk fustion grooves on it, and occasional lapses into Blaxploitation/Porno-Flick soundtrack)
 
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