Last Updated on 22/04/2021
It’s 1967. The world wakes up to find out that John Coltrane has died. Writers are distraught and publish headlines reading that “Jazz as We Know It Is Dead”. And you know what, despite sounding totally hyperbolic, they were right. Come the close of the decade, hard-bop was over and some of the greatest jazz musicians of the time were all of a sudden having the controversial fixation with fusion. There was fusion with rock, fusion with soul and fusion with – what we’re going to be paying attention to – funk. Here’s our top 5 best jazz-funk fusion albums.
5. Blacks and Blues, Bobbi Humphrey
Bobbi Humphrey’s releases with Blue Note Records always feel so refreshing to listen to. Maybe it’s because, being a jazz flautist, she was able to add a new dynamic to a fusion scene more focused on electrifying everything. It could also be that, actually becoming the first female African-American instrumentalist to be signed to the iconic Blue Note label, her input offered an often disregarded and under-appreciated soft touch.
That’s what we hear on Blacks and Blues (1973). Bobbi’s improvisation on the flute leads the direction of the music without being showboaty; it’s crisp and well-balanced in a very funky mix. Just listen to the first track, ‘Chicago, Damn’, and you’ll be convinced.
What’s also angelic is Bobbi’s singing on ‘Just A Love Child’ and ‘Baby’s Gone’ that tos-and-fros with male backing vocals. That’s perhaps what sways me to pick Blacks and Blues over her follow-up album Satin Doll (1974), despite it being another beauty. Her voice shines through more on the former, and incidentally I prefer the original versions of ‘Satin Doll’ and ‘You Are The Sunshine Of My Life’ to Bobbi’s covers on her ’74 release.
4. Introducing, The Eleventh House With Larry Coryell
This is simply a nutribullet of an album, throwing in jazz, rock and funk all into one.
Larry Coryell is one of those people that never truly gets the full credit they deserve for the impact they had on the scene. Miles Davis may have stamped his desperately sort-after seal of approval on fusion with the release of the highly regarded Bitches Brew (1970), but years before it Larry whilst with The Free Spirits was already mixing jazz with rock. Following the opportunity to work with other titan musicians in the rock fusion scene such as John McLaughlin and Chick Corea, the release of Introducing The Eleventh House With Larry Coryell (1973) finally sees funk being added into the mix. Larry’s guitar sounds so fierce and experimental on tracks like ‘The Funky Waltz’; it’s a must-listen album.
Nor is it by any stretch just the Larry show. Randy Brecker on French horn and trumpet and Alphonse Mouzon on drums truly textualize Coryell’s work with an awesome, free-spirited jazz sound, Danny Trifan embeds the funk on bass, and Mike Mandel laces everything with some seriously synthy psychedelia. Listen to the epic solos and percussive grooves on ‘Yin’ to find out for yourself.
3. Spectrum, Billy Cobham
If Introducing The Eleventh House (1973) is to be labelled as a nutribullet of fusion, Billy Cobham’s debut album Spectrum, released in the same year, is more like a tornado that tears through houses of jazz, rock, funk and even electronica with frightening speed.
Addictive funk grooves are thrown into a baptism of fire on tracks like ‘Taurian Matador’ and ‘Red Baron’. Leland Sklar’s driving bass is prolific and perfectly partners the destructive beauty of Tommy Bolin’s guitar solos, recorded shortly before he’d make a name for himself with Deep Purple. You can only imagine just how heated those sessions must have been, with Tommy breaking his E string at 1:45 on ‘Taurian Matador’ and still categorically nailing his jam. Of course, you have Jan Hammer on keys and a host of jazz session players also adding inventive flair to each track.
Then it’s utterly absurd how emotionally raucous Billy’s drumming is, especially on tracks like ‘Anxiety’ and … well … pretty much everything else. I’d love to have been in the producer’s seat on ‘Stratus’ just to get the opportunity to isolate each instrument in turn to work out what the f***is exactly happening. A two-day record, the whole album is more awash with great accidents and inspiration than an Isaac Newton back garden.
2. Places and Spaces, Donald Byrd
This is Blue Note coming to the dancefloor, getting with the times. What ensues is 35 minutes of the hardest groove-train you’ll ever have the privilege of boarding.
Jazz-Funk fusion should be synonymous with Donald Byrd. In fact, the Blue Note label has a lot to thank him for. The risks that were taken on Electric Byrd (1970) pay off enormously for the company and Donald himself, as that was the formula needed to enter the seventies. Following it, Donald continued to release ear-catching albums such as Ethiopian Knights (1972), Street Lady (1973) and the hugely successful Stepping Into Tomorrow (1975), until what I think personally was his best work, Places And Spaces, also recorded in 1975. Catchy trumpet solos and staple Family Stone licks make this album accessible and wonderfully fun.
Try and not get turned on to ‘Wind Parade’. It has backing vocals so mysterious that they put Bjork on the same page as Ray Winstone and sweeping strings capable of conjuring up serious proto-disco boogie potential. Moving onto ‘Dominoes’ and ‘Places And Spaces’, it’s possible to hear how the rest of the album pans out. Donald’s work strays from most fusion in that it’s not focused on intensity and intricacy, rather bright and breezy musical compositions, and a clear focus on melody. That’s no bad thing.
1. Head Hunters, Herbie Hancock
If Donald Byrd is Yoda, then Herbie Hancock, his student whilst Hancock was still a silly fresher at Chicago, is Luke Skywanderer … Skywalker? Yeah, that one.
Once Miles Davis’ Second Great Quartet had unravelled in the late sixties, a time which saw the prodigal pianist begin to develop a love for the electric keyboard, the scene was for the taking. After leaving Blue Note for Warner Bros., Hancock took Byrd’s ambition to explore different genres whilst remaining a jazz artist at heart and derived Fat Albert Rotunda (1969), a soundtrack for Bill Cosby’s Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert. It remains one of the most slept on records in jazz-funk history and arguably kicked it all off for main-stays like Byrd to use as a reference. Alas, being for TV, it’s shortcoming is that the tracks aren’t given a long enough time to spread their wings.
This isn’t the case is for Head Hunters (1973), a perfect album. It kicks off with ‘Chameleon’, a gritty, funk-fuelled introduction capable of getting even OAPs to throw away their Zimmer frames and groove. Then you’ve got ‘Watermelon Man’, a song originally recorded for Herbie’s debut album Takin’ Off (1962). The remix emphasises the level of devotion there was to revamp jazz. ‘Sly’ is perhaps the purest fusion of funk and jazz, boasting some octave defying sax improv, and ‘Vein Melter’ rounds off the LP with some heavy snare rolls marking the start of the come-down.
Honourable mentions:
- A Brazilian Love Affair, George Duke
- Sunburst, Eddie Henderson
- Expansions, Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes
- The Essence of Mystery, Alphonse Mouzon
- Mister Magic, Grover Washington, Jr.
- Everybody Loves The Sunshine, Roy Ayers Ubiquity
- Jaco Pastorius, Jaco Pastorius
