Herbie Handcock’s Head Hunters (1973): Funk Meets Jazz-Fusion
Introducing funk to jazz-fusion (much like Mahavishnu Orchestra did with rock), Herbie Hancock wet our palate with the 15:44-minute track “Chameleon,” tricking us into believing this is an esoteric funk album . . . but it’s not. The composition “Chameleon” became (with 9 minutes shaved off of the…
The Inner Mounting Flame (1971) – Attracting the Rock Crowd
The Inner Mounting Flame was the first album to have the power of hard rock and the improvisational aspects of jazz. It was the debut studio album by American jazz-rock fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra, recorded in August 1971, and released in November of the same year by Columbia…
In A Silent Way (1969) – Pure Genius With a Collaborative Musical Brilliance
Largely improvisational with strokes of a brush painting a musical picture is how one could describe Miles Davis In a Silent Way. Known for his more structured compositions, Davis’s methodology is incorporated in this pioneering fusion album. Side one of the LP gives us electric instruments (except for…