Return to Ever?

Here's my take on it, Afro-Bluegrass
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=819178&songID=6397506

The drummer, Joakim Lartey, learned from his tribal elders in Ghana,
then he heard Miles and Hendrix, came here to the US. He's played with Jack
De Johnette, great player. I was at Joakim's house and had the
idea to do one of my bluegrass tunes with him. He had never heard
it before, it was an impromptu jam Since then, I've "jazzed" it up a bit, adding a section
of Gypsy-tinged chords. I forced Dom Minasi to play it with me
at a gig, I asked, "Wanna try some bluegrass?", he said, "Oh, no, man",
I started in on it anyway, he jumped right in and the audience loved it.

Re: "I can't think of any folk-jazz fusions that took root in the U.S. Maybe Oregon? Or those band-members original gig, in the Paul Winter Consort? Is a band like Hot Tuna a jazz (blues)-folk fusion? Do you hear jazz (I don't, much) in Sweet Honey in the Rock? Who am I forgetting?"

Oregon certainly, although talking folk-jazz would only be the beginning of the conversation.

Maybe Dave Grisman and the whole Dawg music jazz-grass thing?

HM: Is bluegrass itself a folk-jazz fusion?

funny you should mention Pentangle. They are on a reunion tour (all five still going) here in the UK, too. Haven't caught them, but reviews sound more promising. More point to them getting back together than RTF, methinks. Folk-jazz fusion lives...

HM: Interesting, I can't think of any folk-jazz fusions that took root in the U.S. Maybe Oregon? Or those band-members original gig, in the Paul Winter Consort? Is a band like Hot Tuna a jazz (blues)-folk fusion? Do you hear jazz (I don't, much) in Sweet Honey in the Rock? Who am I forgetting?

Really all music is fusion but Jazz has always been fusion. I think soon as we find something that becomes what we consider a "pure" jazz to us we see everything after it as fusion and somehow out of place in jazz.

HM: Very good point, and that's the kind of crystallization of a concept we need to guard against if we care to enjoy the benefits of being continuously surprised and reminded of how strange, fresh and valid different ideas can really be.

Jazz has always been fusion. I think this somehow gets lost on those working uptown. Either there is no jazz anymore...or Oregon is jazz. I go back and forth in my thinking between a hyper-inclusive concept of jazz and another feeling in which I'd rather give up the word entirely, like Duke did sixty years ago. Frisell always speaks eloquently to this issue if you recall any of his interviews.

Dimeola in particular was major rocks off for me when I was a budding guitarist "at seventeen" (1976) listening to Romantic Warrior and his early solo albums, but indeed I've found that his music hasn't aged well in my psyche. As one of the supreme masters, Chick often sounds fresher.

It's been a pleasure lately getting to know some of the early or classic Fairport Convention music in more depth, having largely skipped them some how early on in favor of Steeleye Span, for which I'm overdue for re-investigation. I haven't heard Bachelors Hall since I've been married...(!) Pentangle is an even further bridge that I could traverse.

Beyond the obvious connection to other folk-rockers like Steeleye, there's a more subtle relationship that Fairport Convention has to stuff like Syd Barrett and Early Floyd. This gives it it a sort of Kevin Bacon-type relationship to other complicated psychedelic roots-ish stuff like the Dead; even Little Feat in a way (rhythmically in particular, although Feat went deeper into that element).

In addition to the overall productions, one gets all kinds of early splashes from hyper-identifiable stylists like Swarbrick and Richard Thompson, let alone Sandy Denny. Fairport is the folkier side to the more famous British Blues boom groups like Cream and the Stones, and the seemingly forgotten early Fleetwood Mac.

My brother reminded me that I should mention the eclecticism of Led Zep, which would be relevant to this thread even if Sandy Denny hadn't guested on Battle of Evermore, making obvious their place in my comment. A year or so ago I went over many of the great live Zep things on DVD that are now available. Having heard them here in town in '77 at Madison Square, I was struck again by how their in concert developments resembled what a good jazz group would do with the tunes. Rock-jazz, like Jeff Beck, rather than jazz-rock I guess. Introductions expanded, looser improvisation sections, you can really hear them aiming for and making more of the various famous climaxes in different ways.

As a mainstream group back in the day they would seem foreign to our contemporary "play it like the record" industry. But there's plenty of good music today, you just have to know where to point yer ears. I won't be going out of my way to procure a $100 RTF reunion ticket to join a "festival crowd". As I approach my 50th, I indulge in my share of nostalgia, but I have my limits (!)...

You nailed it, "..the supergroup was born several minutes past fusion's finest hour..."
As a guitar hippie who heard Hendrix live, Larry Coryell at Slugs in the East Village, John McLaughlin at a church before he started Mahavishnu, then the first Mahavishnu gigs at the Gaslight and Beacon Theater (3rd bill to Steve Miller, what a disgrace), and Weather Report's first US gigs at the Gaslight, Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall and many other great bands during the late 60's and early 70's, I was disappointed when I heard RTF at their first gig at Max's Kansas City. To me, they seemed more like interlopers than innovators. (Zawinul was in the audience, he left after 2 tunes.) Chick Corea said after the gig that Zawinul was "the master". Later, I was horrified when RTF played after Weather Report at Lincoln Center, like WP was the opening band. Sacrilege!

Have a happy eternity,

Johnny Asia
http://music.download.com/johnnyasia
http://johnnyasia.com

HM: Thanks for your note, Johnny -- yes, I saw Hendrix live three times, lots of electric Miles, Mahavishnu Orchestra in its first (classic) incarnation, Coryell often (though most memorable to me is one of his late '70s gigs in acoustic duo with Steve Khan), and Weather Report, too, preferring them all to RTF in its guitar-bass-drums-piano form. My question post-Ottawa is what are they fusing? Is there any rock 'n' roll, is there bluesy jazz, or is it kind of like Emerson Lake & Palmer, pseudo-classical riffs, ostinato bass lines, plus jousting improv? The best features in RTF's set were the solo spotlights, mostly acoustic. Hmmmmmm. For comparison, consider those couple of tracks of jams by Hendrix with Larry Young.

What about Tiny Grimes? You didn't mention Tiny Grimes?! How could you not mention Tiny Grimes?

I am going to sit down right here on your comments page and SULK until you mention Tiny Grimes and how his quartet was oozin' fusion almost before Chicky-baby was even BORN.

And I ain't budgin' 'til you do.

HM: Well, yr right, Mr. G. Tiny Grimes -- the Cats and the Fiddle, Slim Gaillard, yes indeed a fusion of myriad elements pop 'n' jazz. Also, I must add: Bob Wills (preceding Speedy West and other maestros of the pedal steel -- that's where Gary Burton got his start. Interestingly, the country & western crowd didn't question or reject stylistic fusions as so many deep-dyed jazzbos did (and do). Now we get Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson as two men with the blues -- ain't that fusion, on the face of it?