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Fusion

Fusion describes the merging of different musical styles and intentions.  In the best case, Fusion is an open door to all music traditions everywhere to merge with novel, exciting creativity. Fusion is not always an easy path to follow. Musicians who are well established in one musical genre usually face criticism and degrees of rejection when they move in another direction. Bob Dylan switched abruptly from folk music to a rock and roll,  electric band, suffering angry criticism in the process. Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker were criticized by fellow jazz musicians for their new jazz style "Bebop." Miles Davis also faced criticism as he moved from more "traditional jazz" into continuously evolving styles that incorporated world music and at times came perilously close to rock and roll. Davis attracted the best musicians available so that innovation was an eclectic group effort.

Rock and Roll emerged through the combination of rhythm and blues, gospel and country music.  Some rock bands with more diversified and talented musicians moved in the direction of jazz bands and some moved to long pieces with  symphonic orchestration. Jazz fusion merges progressive jazz formats with a wide variety other musical styles including funk, rock, R&B, electronic, latin and world music.

Latin Music arrived In American as a fusion mix of music traditions-- native music with Spanish, Portuguese  and African music.  In the US, Latin music fused with jazz, R&B, rock and roll and hip hop, in ever-changing, derivative styles.

Miles Davis moved through "classic jazz" to Bebop, cool jazz, and modal jazz. The 1968 album “Miles in the Sky” introduced Herbie Hancock playing electric piano and Carter playing bass guitar. In 1969, electronic instruments dominated the next album “In a Silent Way”, an innovative fusion album. The musicians who played with Miles often continued to develop fusions styles. 1970’s fusion bands originated with Miles Davis alumni: Tony Williams Lifetime, Weather Report, McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Corea's Return to Forever, and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters band. Herbie Hancock was one of the first jazz keyboardists to use synthesizers. Funk jazz emerged in his albums, Head Hunters 1973 and Thrust in 1974.

Weather Report, featuring Joe Zawinul  and Wayne Shorter developed world music fusion jazz. Jaco Pastorius, the electric bass player, went on to great fame and a tragic death in 1987. In 2006, Pastorius was voted "The Greatest Bass Player Who Has Ever Lived" by reader submissions in Bass Guitar Magazine.   Zawinul, a jazz keyboardist and composer used synthesizers was widely admired. He won the "Best Keyboardist" award 30 times from American jazz magazine.

Chick Corea, another of the great keyboardists, founded the band Return to Forever in 1972 with latin-influenced music. The band soon evolved into a jazz-rock band.

John McLaughlin was influenced by his  guru, Sri Chinmoy and created the Mahavishnu Orchestra that merged psychedelic rock with Indian music.

Carlos Santana’s band  blended Latin salsa, rock, blues, and jazz.  Pat Metheny started a fusion band in 1977 that produced popular recordings that made both jazz and pop charts.

We Seek Audiophile Perfection  We make great music at Persona Digital Studios. We have many years of experience with computer based sound recording and enjoy technology shop talk. We also have a well developed interest in how our brains process sounds. Our in house music production creates audiophile quality recordings presented as CD's, DVDs, singles and albums for Download.  Music Downloads are albums, packaged as MP3 files in a zip folder. Download  the zip folder and save.  In Windows, click on the folder and choose the extract all option to unzip the files to your hard drive. The MP3 files will play on all computers, laptops, notebooks, smart phones, iPods,. iPads, CD and DVD players and all portable music players. Some albums contain liner notes or minibooks as PDF files that introduce the music. More About Downloads.

Persona Digital Studio is located on the Sunshine Coast, Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada.
 www.personadigitalstudio.com  email  music@personadigitalstudio.com.
Our Music Catalogue includes recorded performances by the P2500 Band, Em4U, and the Persona Classical Consort.
Music downloads and books are available from our companion website: Persona Digital Online.