Daily Jazz Notes

  Jazz’s Neo Gumbo: Rock, Funk, and Psychedelia This is our final stop on the jazz tour. Today, we are going to talk about jazz fusion, a subgenre that combines elements of jazz, rock, R&B, funk, psychedelia, and world music.     In other words, this subgenre is extremely experimental and rock-oriented as opposed to the traditional jazz and takes an open mind and open ear.   The instruments that are commonly used are electric guitars, electric bass guitar,   electric keyboards, and synthesizers. We cannot discuss jazz fusion without highlighting one of its most prominent pioneers,   jazz fusionist, trumpetist and jazz innovator, Miles Davis.   Davis or just “Miles” to his fans created a brand-new sound that would change the jazz world forever. In his pioneering 1969 release In a Silent Way ,   Davis combines elements of the sounds of that era, psychedelic   rock, R&B, soul, funk.   In fact, Miles even admitted to being inspir...

  Adding Salsa to the Gumbo: Latin Jazz Let’s take a trip down memory lane  t o honor Latin Jazz,   a subgenre of jazz that combines elements of traditional New Orleans   jazz with mambo, son, rumba, cumbia, and other Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Cuban elements. There are many contributors to this genre of jazz, including African-American composer, and New Orlean’s native Jelly Roll Mortin and trumpeter extraordinaire Dizzy Gillespie, but I am going to focus today on Afro-Latino contributors, especially two of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent. On our tour, let’s start with one of originators,  Machito, with his hit song Tanga (1943).  Note how the Latin  and Afro-Caribbean beats infuse seamlessly with the New Orleans jazz creating a gumbo infused with salsa.  The New Orleans “wah-wah,” trumpet mutes go in and out of the percussive piano playing, giving the song both a bluesy and jazzy sound, and rhythmic percussion, including drums, congas, bongos, tim...