Photo by Raj Naik by S. Victor Aaron Tomorrow, a jazz band that’s been around for 30 years will release their 21st album. Founded in the aftermath of Robben Ford’s The Inside Story (1979), Ford’s backing band has been making records since their self-titled album from 1981. Through several line-up changes,Read More

by S. Victor Aaron Since very early on we’ve eagerly pounced on records that re-image that dense, impenetrable period of Miles Davis between about 1969 and 1975 when he first defined fusion jazz and then kept redefining it again and again. This is music that doesn’t come easily to mostRead More

Photo from www.BobbySelvaggio.com by S. Victor Aaron For a serious post-bop performer to take a leap into Grooveland, it can often be a risky bet. Will they be able to keep their artistic integrity? Will they even care? A couple of years ago, alto saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio made his secondRead More

Ginger Baker’s all-too-brief ‘Horses & Trees’ was fusion in the most complete sense of the word.

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by Mark Saleski I’ve been reading bits and pieces of Henry Miller’s The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Miller’s collection of essays about his travels around the United States. The expatriate writer had wanted to see what his homeland had become, to get to the core of it all. As with all ofRead More

by S. Victor Aaron Gerald Cleaver, along with Nasheet Waits, seems to always be the drummer on some really outstanding jazz records of late. Michael Formanek’s The Rub And Spare Change required virtuosic musicians playing at peak level to make it work, and Cleaver did his part and then some,Read More

The late Don Grolnick made only one fusion record, but it was a real beaut. by S. Victor Aaron Ahhh, the 80s. Big hair, big synthesizer sounds and programmed beats. That didn’t just happen with pop and rock, some of these trends seeped into contemporary jazz, too. This was theRead More

Upon reflecting back on the year, I’ve concluded that Torben Waldorff’s American Rock Beauty ranks up there among 2010’s finest fusion jazz records. by S. Victor Aaron It’s been a great year for fusion records, as there has been an abundance of new ideas and well-recycled old ideas. Moreover, there’sRead More

Gene Pritsker is a guitarist and bandleader whose written over 370 compositions, has worked closely with the late Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies. His band Sound Liberation plays an amalgamation of rock, jazz, chamber, minimalism and hip-hop. Varieties Of Religious Experience Suite is a series of relatedRead More