> As for your first question: there really isn't a lot of difference between a
> lot of acid jazz and fusion, just like there isn't a lot of difference
> between Wynton marsalis and hard bop, or Dr Dre and P-Funk, Country music and
> 70s soft rock and Soundgarden and Black Sabbath. As a matter of fact Im
> still waiting for the genre to catch up with Miles Electric recordings, not
> to mention Weather Report, Jean Paul Bourelly and Steve Coleman. Or james
> brown, P-Funk and sly, for that matter, to take what they did and go places
> with it (this chilled out laid back stuff is starting to smell a lot like the
> movement that made a lot of West Coast jazz so flat) If you are a jazz fan,
> you have a lot of "acid jazz" in your collecion already. Acid jazz - in the
> instrumental sense (excluding the hip-hop/dub/dance influence) is a style of
> music that has been going on for years, all the way back to the soul jazz
> stuff people like Cannonball and Charles Earland put out.You can get a good
> working knowledge of people like disJam by just listing to Lonnie Liston
> Smith, herbie Hancock Brian Auger, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Jimmy Smith (his stuff
> on Verve like :"Sit on It") or Deodato. Not to mention roy ayers, Grover
> Washington, etc. some of that stuff was pretty boring, but some of it was
> pretty cool.
> doop
>
>
I would add to this that, depending on the progress of your "illness"
(hardening of the categories), there are some people who get classified
as fusion but who have work at the crossroads. Off the top, I would name
Tom Scott (e.g., "Night Creatures," I believe--not being next to my
collection) or Candy Dulfer's recent stuff. Many others seem to have a
track or two with a hip-hop-type rhythm section, that kind of thing
(Spyro Gyra and those types). Even Stanley Clarke who has taken some
flack here recently (although "the Kenny G of the guitar" seems a bit
harsh to me) seems to be there. Listen to his cover of Ravel's Bolero
(again, I'm sorry I can't recall the recording title, but email and I'll
get it for you if you're interested). Nuff said.
Bil
bdwyer@grove.ufl.edu