Eclectic Fusion

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Fusion was a term coined in the early 70s to designate a style of music that involved a combination of jazz, rock, funk and Latin styles. In the 80s a new style of fusion emerged that sometimes utilized those elements, but also turned to current musical developments such as punk, thrash metal, rap/hip-hop, neo-surf and diverse ethnic music such as klezmer, polka, Bulgarian wedding music and more. At JMA we call this 80s based fusion music, Eclectic Fusion. The Eclectic Fusion artist tends to be a bit more urban and hard edged than the 70s fusion artist, and is liable to call on a much more diverse array of influences. These artists can also be more prone towards an avant-garde and/or deconstructionist approach to their creations.

Some precedents to the Eclectic Fusion genre can be found in Miles Davis' "Black Magus" and Ornette Coleman's "Dancing in Your Head". Possibly the first full realization of Eclectic Fusion can be found in John Zorn's Naked City band. Other popular practitioners of Eclectic Fusion include Sax Ruins, Electric Masada, Panzerballet, Raoul Bjorkenheim's Krakatau, Led Bib, The Thing and Kazutoki Umezu.

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Showing only albums and live's | Based on members ratings & JMA custom algorithm | 24 hours caching

MASADA At The Mountains Of Madness (Electric Masada) Album Cover At The Mountains Of Madness (Electric Masada)
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4.88 | 4 ratings
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DONNY MCCASLIN Beyond Now Album Cover Beyond Now
DONNY MCCASLIN
4.91 | 3 ratings
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PAUL MOTIAN Monk in Motian Album Cover Monk in Motian
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4.83 | 3 ratings
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SONNY SHARROCK Ask the Ages Album Cover Ask the Ages
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4.60 | 13 ratings
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OMAR RODRÍGUEZ-LÓPEZ Omar Rodriguez Lopez Quintet ‎: The Apocalypse Inside Of An Orange Album Cover Omar Rodriguez Lopez Quintet ‎: The Apocalypse Inside Of An Orange
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4.75 | 3 ratings
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CURLEW Bee Album Cover Bee
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4.62 | 4 ratings
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CURLEW Live In Berlin Album Cover Live In Berlin
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4.62 | 4 ratings
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AKA MOON In Real Time Album Cover In Real Time
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4.67 | 3 ratings
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BILL FRISELL Bill Frisell / Kermit Driscoll / Joey Baron ‎: Live Album Cover Bill Frisell / Kermit Driscoll / Joey Baron ‎: Live
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4.75 | 2 ratings
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PAUL MOTIAN The Paul Motian Trio at the Village Vanguard Album Cover The Paul Motian Trio at the Village Vanguard
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4.75 | 2 ratings
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PAUL MOTIAN Paul Motian Trio: Sound of Love Album Cover Paul Motian Trio: Sound of Love
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BILL FRISELL Have a Little Faith Album Cover Have a Little Faith
BILL FRISELL
4.43 | 13 ratings
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This list is in progress since the site is new. We invite all logged in members to use the "quick rating" widget (stars bellow album covers) or post full reviews to increase the weight of your rating in the global average value (see FAQ for more details). Enjoy JMA!

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eclectic fusion Music Reviews

CUONG VU Cuong Vu 4-tet ‎: Leaps Of Faith

Live album · 2011 · Eclectic Fusion
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snobb
Cuong Vu, Vietnamiese-born US-based trumpeter, was a significant figure on the creative jazz scene during the first two decades of the new century. On "Leaps Of Faith", his only released live album as a leader to date, Cuong leads a two-basses/drums quartet on a series of standards and originals.

Musically Vu starts somewhere on Miles' early psychedelic fusion and moves it towards more contemporary aerial Nils-Petter Molvaer style nu jazz. Standards (incl., Body And Soul and My Funny Valentine among others) are seriously deconstructed, and are not easily recognizable. In general, the whole album's main attraction is quite relaxed, liquid and often lyrical sound of Vu's trumpet. The originals, especially the 15-minutes long, "I Shall Never Come Back", are more energetic, contain some shredding and are closer to rock-jazz.

In all, not very memorable album musically, it attracts listener by relaxed atmosphere and nice atmospheric soundscapes.

SAM RIVERS Sizzle

Album · 1976 · Eclectic Fusion
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snobb
Strangest Sam Rivers album ever - instead of the free-bop of his early works or the avant-garde jazz he is well-known for, Rivers plays four long fast-tempo funky pieces in a style one could expect from Sonny Sharrock or Ronald Shannon Jackson.

The band contains two drummers (incl. Barry Altschul), Dave Holland on bass/cello and guitarist Ted Dunbar. Rivers himself plays sax, piano and a lot of flute. Released on his regular Impulse! label, this album didn't reach the target listeners for that sort of music and critics didn't receive it well.

Energetic and straight-forward, this album's music has its moments, but comparing with much more complex and knotty River's regular albums of the time, it is simply not the work of his league.

BRAD MEHLDAU Jacob's Ladder

Album · 2022 · Eclectic Fusion
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js
Well here it is, Brad Mehldau’s somewhat ballyhooed alleged return to his youthful progressive rock roots. Truth be told, “Jacob‘s Ladder“ is not exactly a prog rock album, which may be a good thing for some, but prog does play a big part on this rather eclectic album. Along with covers of some classic songs like “Tom Sawyer“, “Cogs in Cogs“ and “Starship Trooper”, you also get a fair share of ‘trappy’ electronica nu jazz, a synthesizer fugue, some readings from the Bible, semi-classical instrumental ballads, some art pop and more. In the prog tradition, this is a very ambitious album, but how does it all add up to the listener. To paraphrase from David Byrne, “some good points, and some not as good points”. Ambitious musically, but also literally as Brad muses on man’s relationship with God in his very thoughtful opening liner notes. Second track, “Herr und Knecht”, presents intense music as Tobias Bader screams out an internal debate from Hegel’s “Phenomenology”. Yes, some of this album is far from easy listening.

“Cogs in Cogs” gets three different treatments, first a nu jazz dubish instrumental, then a cover with vocals, and then finally a synthesizer fugue that sounds like a tribute to Wendy Carlos. “Tom Sawyer” gets a jazzy treatment and overall sounds a lot better without Geddy Lee’s vocals. On “Jacob’s Ladder II”, we get an excellent Mehldau piano solo over an electronic trap groove. “Jacob’s Ladder III” has Bible verses over sampled choirs and then ends with some very intense anguished screaming and yelling, you have been warned. Closing track “Heaven …” is an album highlight as the assembled all-star band does an excellent cover of “Starship Trooper”. Cecile McLorin Salvant’s beautiful wordless vocals open the track before Safia McKinney-Askeur comes into handle the lyrics. It closes out with Brad’s relaxed and lyrical piano solo over Yes’ famous closing three chord vamp.

I didn’t come close to covering all the material on here, there is just too much to cover. Brad seems to be wrestling with the big issues here, both spiritual and philosophical. It takes a certain amount of guts and integrity to release an album that aspires to be all that Mehldau presents here.

MARKUS REUTER Truce 2

Album · 2022 · Eclectic Fusion
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js
“Truce 2” is the second installment for the Markus Reuter led trio known as Truce. The making of this album was supposed to take place almost two years ago, but with the pandemic and its fallout going down, things got postponed for quite a while. “Truce 1” was mostly free form jazz rock jams in a style somewhat similar to Robert Fripp’s King Crimson circa mid-70s. When Reuter and his crew, Fabio Trentini on bass and Asaf Sirkis on drums, got back together after the long break, they tried to pick up where they left off in a similar fashion, but soon found that they had all changed considerably and this Truce 2 was going to be an entirely different beast. This time around, rather than just playing unedited free jams, the band decided to organize things a bit, and they also indulged in some editing and overdubs as well. The end result is a more powerful and direct musical statement, and the music itself also changed. Although there is still some of the funk-rock jams of the first album present, this second album is much more metalish, industrial, noisy, abrasive and intense. “Truce 2” may have less jazz fusion, but in many ways it’s the better of the two albums. The power and intensity of this music will slam you upside the head for real. Even in this album’s quieter ambient moments, there is a feeling that the damn may break and unleash a torrent at any moment.

Its hard to come up with artists with a similar sound, but maybe some of the more metal oriented John Zorn projects might come to mind, as well as guitar heavy avant-garde fusion groups like Last Exit and Power Tools, as well as Miles’ “Dark Magus” and the 90s version of King Crimson. Although they do hit a groove now and again, much of this album has a constantly shifting focus in which musical ideas are presented for a while and then hastily cast aside for something else. You can listen to Truce 2 many times and still hear things you missed before. Markus is still one of today’s top soloists, and he often reels off Pete Cosey style sheets of rapid fire stinging guitar shrapnel. Band mates Fabio and Asaf have also grown in confidence and offer musical ideas far beyond what happened on their first outing. Sure, some fans are going to miss the more familiar sound of their first album, but give “Truce 2” a chance, it is one helluva a ride, totally devoid of clichés and expectations.

SONS OF KEMET Black To The Future

Album · 2021 · Eclectic Fusion
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snobb
Being a scene leader has its pros and cons. From the positive side, you are known, you have your followers and each of your new works is awaited. From the other side, there are expectations, a lot of them. And it's not an easy job to fulfill all of them. Some fans are waiting for another album of the music they know and like and any change in direction can disappoint them. Others are happy with what you already did but are not much interested in another "same" recording, so they are expecting from you something new. Doesn't matter what you do, some of your fans will be disappointed.

Shabaka Hutchings, who with no doubt is one of the leaders of the burgeoning London jazz scene, runs three different projects trying to solve above mentioned problems in a best possible way, and quite often he succeeds in it.

On "Back To Future" - the newest album from his most eclectic project Sons Of Kemet - is obvious continuation of quartet's previous work, extremely successful "Your Queen Is A Reptile", with some insignificant modifications.

On "Your Queen Is A Reptile", the band's debut on Impulse!, the quartet of sax player, tubist and two drummers went back to African roots, adding more percussive vibes with a big list of guesting additional drummers. Rapper/vocalist Joshua Idehen has been presented on the opener and closer, for the first time (both two early quartet albums were fully instrumental). On "Back To Future", Shabaka uses same formula, when Joshua Idehen opens and closes the show, but there are more guest vocalists on the album (incl. Angel Bat Dawid), as a result, whole recording sounds more as "singing music", rather than just instrumental. And Shabaka adds more brass instead of percussion too. From the musical side we have same Caribbean flavored marching semi melancholic tunes, just less percussive and slightly polished with electronics.

Shabaka obviously trying not to lose a successful formula of the previous album, only slightly modifying and refreshing the sound. As a result, we got an evolutional, not revolutionary work, still with easy recognizable Shabaka's sound.

eclectic fusion movie reviews

MEDESKI MARTIN AND WOOD Fly In A Bottle

Movie · 2011 · Eclectic Fusion
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js
“Fly in a Bottle” is a documentary that follows Medeski, Martin and Wood while they are on tour developing the music that will become “Radiolarians”, as well as some of the recording sessions for that same album. The music on here is excellent, MM&W have a come a long way over the years. They were always a talented band from the start, but their confidence has grown. The funky tunes are funkier than ever, and the psychedelic jazz-rock tunes are more powerful, imaginative and original. Almost any music fan might enjoy watching their concerts and even some of their recording sessions, but a lot of the rest of this DVD is for hardcore fans only.

Along with the footage of MM&W playing music, you also get a lot of footage of them on tour visiting ecological tourist spots and talking, hanging out etc, which is where I think a lot of non-fans will probably start losing interest. They seem like nice sincere guys, but they aren’t particularly entertaining or charismatic, which is often the case with nice sincere guys. There are also some artsy short videos that follow the main feature, some more entertaining than others. Fans of MM&W may want to pick this up, it’s a well-made video and the music is excellent, but non-fans may find this lacking in substance in places.

Artists with Eclectic Fusion release(s)

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