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jazz rock fusion

© Agha Yasir

In the early '70s rock spectrum, another strange musical mutation was gathering force and would soon make a tremendous impact on rock guitar style and technique: the sound of jazz-rock. The real pioneer of early jazz-rock though was jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, who began using static rock rhythms in his recordings and allowing his musicians to stretch out with rock inflected solos. The two ground-breaking Davis' fusion recordings were 1969's In A Silent Way and 1970's Bitches' Brew, both of which introduced the music world to the English guitarist John McLaughlin.

McLaughlin possessed an uncanny melodic sense, as well as an amazing technical dexterity. During 1969-70, guitar flash McLaughlin cut two albums of near-violent improvisation with the short-lived Tony Williams lifetime. But playing, as a sideman was not enough- so late in 1971, McLaughlin formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra. On 1972's Inner Mounting Flame, McLaughlin wrote almost the entire book of jazz-rock guitar on the spot. On the opening track Meeting of the Spirits, he attacks his solo spot with blazingly fast modal phrases, distorted string bends and screaming feedback on Gibson Les Paul. As if that were not enough he replaced the feat- even topping on it- on the following year's Birds of Fire, a brilliant instrumental recording that features his manic leads played on a Gibson Doubleneck, while adding complicated chordial arpeggios on the electric 12-string. Later McLaughlin would abandon the electric guitar altogether to create another brain blowing achievement with his all-acoustic Indian fusion band Shakti. Though Larry Coryell, Jerry Hahn and John Abercrombie were all valid contributors to the birth of jazz-rock guitar, few would dispute that McLaughlin is the real father of this explosive instrumental genre, as well as one of the great electric virtuosos of the last thirty years.

In 1975, British-Rock Legend Jeff Beck made his own foray into jazz-rock on his all-instrumental Blow by Blow album and scored a significant hit. Far from McLaughlin's wild improvisational melees and highbrow technique, Beck's fusion was more controlled and oriented toward rock and funk. Beck actually had no training in jazz and on this album relied on his great ability to mould his blues-based playing to any style he might choose. Nonetheless Blow by Blow was a major success in the advancement of jazz-rock and established this former hard-rock hero as the best guitarist of the mid '70s. He won several polls ironically under the "jazz" category much to the ire of the straight-ahead jazz performers. Effortlessly Beck followed it up the next year with Wired, another great album that was heavier than Blow by Blow and also featured the wild synthesizer work of the ex-Mahavishnu keyboardist Jan Hammer. By the beginning of 1977, Jeff Beck was tops in jazz-rock guitar.

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