All these, in my opinion, are clearly jazz inclined. National Health being classic fusion, and maybe the others JR Rock.

 

Not so sure much about Caravan, they do have Waterloo Lily which is jazzy, but maybe that's not sufficient.

 

Thoughts?

No time consuming mp3 downloads please.

 

It will either remind you a bit of Zappa or of Soft Machine, in most cases. Or other British Fusion acts.

Just remembered of Henry Cow, that might be a good addition to the site or not.

Henry Cow is here in Jazz Related Rock, Fred Frith shows up in a couple genres, Wyatt too.

Gilgamesh - Classic Fusion

the Muffins - Classic Fusion

Supersister - Jazz Related Rock

National Health clip wouldn't play, I've heard them before, I just need to hear something to remind me.

Do you have one more clip for Picchio dal Plaza, they are hard to classify.

Also, do you have the country of origin on all theses, I will add them later.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Gilgamesh - UK

The Muffins - U.S.A

Supersister - Netherlands

National Health - UK

Picchio dal Pozzo - Italy

 

Here's some more Picchio:

 

National Health (they're very similar to The Muffins):

 

Now that I think of it again, Picchio dal Pozzo may not be the best suited for a jazz-related genre, although they're clearly inspired by Zappa and probably Henry Cow, and some Soft Machine. But I'll let you decide with those samples I gave you.

 

If you need any more info/help for the addition, just let me know.

Of the 5, The Muffins are just straight up Classic Fusion.

National Health is more rock like, they have a lot of structure and composition, and their melodies are rock like, but they do have some nice fusion sections, so they can go in JR-Rock.

Picchio dal Pozzo is a great band and they have a jazzy sound, but hardly any improv at all. Some of the horn arrangements were jazz band like, but musically they are pure composed art-rock/prog-rock. I like them a lot, maybe we can add them later when we see how the site goes, but i would recommend waiting on that one.

I always had difficulties with National Health though. They are often named as "last Canterbury scene classic band", and it has sense. Formed still from same known musicians, the time around was different already, and their sound is borderline with ... let say chamber rock . Their music missed humor and fun of any real Canterbury band, but they concentrated on technical aspects,playing self-closed complex music. Real borderline band for the genre, still have some formal Canterbury  elements, but ruled but head,not by heart.

 

I really don't see much difference between National Health's structured compositions and Return to Forever's or Bruford's structured and technical ones. Just my opinion of course.

Bruford is hard to categorize, a lot of Earthworks is post-bop, while some of his stuff is like National Health too. i think Classic Fusion for Bruford was just a lazy compromise  

You do realize I will be answering these same questions for new people day after day for the rest of my life until I go crazy.    Its not easy picking a genre for bands that are inbetween, somebody has to do it and then stick to that decision, otherwise we have pure chaos, ...beautiful beautiful chaos.

The general rule on here is jazz musicians playing rock equals fusion, while rock musicians using jazz elements equals JR Rock.

A good way to tell a true jazz musician with a jazz background is that they all know how to play those old standards by heart. McLaughlin can rock with the best, but he can also play 'Round Midnight'  or 'Epistrophy' off the top of his head if you ask him to.

 

Yeah, Return to Forever's debut, Light as a Feather, is listed as Classic Fusion though it's actually Latin Jazz. Whenever I'll be able to edit some info, meaning adding line-ups, I'll see if I can change some of the more obvious mis-labels. Though I'll leave the more doubtful labels, as in National Health's case, to you and other Collabs. 

Something that Slava and I agreed on recently was that we don't want to nitpick every single album. Once a band, such as RTF, has an overall theme of Classic Fusion, we may put the different variations they have done over the years in Classic Fusion, but not neccesarily.

Keep asking questions and raising points, that is how we work all this out and try to reach some sort of consensus so we are ready when the site is open.

Re rock musicians playing fusion:    a couple albums by rockers like Zappa and Jeff Beck are such good pure jazz  fusion that we put those albums in Classic Fusion.

 

Something else to consider is popular perception. I don't think its a good idea to be a one-man-against-the-world musicologist and say something like "The Allman Brothers album Eat a Peach is pure jazz, other people just don't know it".

Since the popular perception of the Allman Brothers is as a rock band, then so be it.

 

Regarding Light as a Feather, well, I wouldn't call it "fusion" in any way, but as you know, my knowledge of the definitions of jazz and its genres are not really that good. Do re-listen to Light as a Feather and tell me what you think, I consider it Latin Jazz.

 

However, I agree that we shouldn't be so nitpicky, that was one of the main issues I thought that a jazz site would have to deal with. Say Miles Davis' discography, I was very happy to see that it had been divided very well in the genres he played.

I would be happy with that one going either way:

You know Matt and I don't agree on every genre label on here. I just let him work on what he works on and I work on what I work on and we don't go back and change each other's work   .... very often  

I mean the difference between Jazz Related Blues and Soul Jazz is hardly worth losing sleep over.

Re National Health:  Ironically enough, I brought them up long ago for Classic Fusion but Slava told me they are "chamber rock" so we decided to put them aside.

Its the melodies they use that make them sound like rock, those semi-military prog-rock melodies that are like the opposite of jazz to me.

To their credit, when they play fusion it is really good fusion on the level of real jazz musicians. Its their public perception that made me want to put them in Classic Fusion, but just like Slava, I had a hard time with the music as jazz.

Public perception is important though, if enough people complain, I would switch them to Classic Fusion, none of this is worth taking too seriously really.