Jazz fusion is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was an American jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba", and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered one of the foremost jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.
John McLaughlin is an English guitarist, bandleader, and composer. A pioneer of jazz fusion, his music combines elements of jazz with rock, world music, Indian classical music, Western classical music, flamenco, and blues. After contributing to several key British groups of the early 1960s, McLaughlin made Extrapolation, his first album as a bandleader, in 1969. He then moved to the U.S., where he played with drummer Tony Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his electric jazz fusion albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, and On the Corner. His 1970s electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and rock with Indian influences.
The Mahavishnu Orchestra were a jazz fusion band formed in New York City in 1971, led by English guitarist John McLaughlin. The group underwent several line-up changes throughout its history across in its two periods of activity, from 1971 to 1976 and from 1984 to 1987. With its first line-up consisting of musicians Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman, and Rick Laird, the band received its initial acclaim for its complex, intense music consisting of a blend of Indian classical music, jazz and psychedelic rock, and its dynamic live performances between 1971 and 1973. Many members of the band have gone on to acclaimed careers of their own in the jazz and jazz fusion genres.
Albert Laurence Di Meola is an American guitarist. Known for his works in jazz fusion and world music, he began his career as a guitarist of the group Return to Forever in 1974. Between the 1970s and 1980s, albums such as Elegant Gypsy and Friday Night in San Francisco earned him both critical and commercial success.
Return to Forever was an American jazz fusion band that was founded by pianist Chick Corea in 1972. The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. Along with Weather Report, The Headhunters, and Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever is often cited as one of the core groups of the jazz-fusion movement of the 1970s. Several musicians, including Clarke, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira and Al Di Meola, came to prominence through their performances on Return to Forever albums.
Oscar Lopez is a Chilean-Canadian guitarist, whose signature style blends Latin and jazz styles.
Shakti were a fusion band formed by English guitarist John McLaughlin, Indian violin player L. Shankar, percussionists Zakir Hussain and T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakram in 1974. The band played acoustic fusion music which combined Indian music with elements of jazz. The band's Hindi name means, in English, "creative intelligence, beauty, and power."
Ulrich Schröder, known under the pseudonym Praful, is an acid jazz artist who performs on several instruments including tenor and soprano saxophones, Indian bamboo flutes, pandeiros, Fender Rhodes and many electronic effects. Two of his CDs One Day Deep and Pyramid in Your Backyard have won many awards and worldwide recognition. "Sigh", included in the One Day Deep CD and as a single, had stayed in the Billboards for over 70 weeks.
Fareed Haque is an American jazz guitarist, based in Chicago, Illinois.
Amos Leon Thomas Jr., known professionally as Leon Thomas, was an American jazz and blues vocalist, born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and known for his bellowing glottal-stop style of free jazz singing in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Nicholas Webb was an English acoustic guitarist, composer, and co-founder of contemporary jazz group Acoustic Alchemy. Webb was the brother of Alex Webb, the nephew of actress Sylvia Syms, and appeared as a child in The Punch and Judy Man, British comedian Tony Hancock's second starring film, in which Syms played the wife of his character.
Abraham Laboriel Jr. is an American session drummer. He is the son of Mexican bass guitarist Abraham Laboriel, nephew of Mexican rocker Johnny Laboriel, and brother of record producer, songwriter, and film composer Mateo Laboriel. He has been the drummer for Paul McCartney's touring and recording band since 2001, as well as for Eric Clapton among others.
Roman Maksimovich Miroshnichenko is a Ukraine-born Russian multi-award winning jazz fusion guitarist, composer, and record producer. He has received numerous accolades, including four The Independent Music Awards, 1st Prize of the USA Songwriting Competition, 1st Prize of the International Acoustic Music Awards, five Global Music Awards and three Hollywood Music in Media Awards nominees. He has worked with musicians such as Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Marco Mendoza, Paul Wertico, Jennifer Batten, Heather Headley, Djivan Gasparyan, Dominique DiPiazza, to name a few, during his career. Formerly, he played in a duo with fusion guitarist Larry Coryell.
Alex Machacek is an Austrian jazz fusion guitarist
The Music Ensemble of Benares was conceived in 1975 and founded in 1982 by the German musician Gunther Paust, The Music Ensemble of Benares is a group of artists from the north Indian city of Benares (Varanasi). Though the ensemble has grown and developed to encompass an eclectic array of musical styles and genres it is rooted in Indian classical music.
Free is an album by Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist Airto Moreira with performances recorded in 1972. The album was released by CTI Records and reached No. 30 on the jazz album chart at Billboard magazine.
Gino D'Auri was an Italian flamenco, fusion and classical guitarist of Romani origin.
Fusion Jonda is a Puerto Rican band that blends Caribbean music with gypsy-flamenco sounds, melodies, and rhythms. The band also centers its music on Afrobeat, jazz, Arabic, and Indian music combination elements achieving a contemporary approach.
Alberto Rosado from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, graduated summa cum laude from the Conservatory of Music in Puerto Rico in 2012, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Caribbean Music and Jazz Guitar Performance. Alberto has studied with world-renowned musicians such as legendary bassist Eddie Gomez, pianist Luis Marín, guitarist Fernando Mattina, percussionist and Grammy nominee Paoli Mejias, tenor saxophonist and Grammy winner David Sanchez and pianist Brenda Hopkins, among many others. Currently, he is pursuing his MBA in Music Business from Southern New Hampshire University in partnership with Berklee College of Music.
