Fusion is back, although it never really went away, as the piles of gold lying around Kenny G.'s house would prove if only we could see them. Confused? Here's a brief refresher:
In the '60s, many jazz musicians found themselves marginalized by rock and soul. Then in 1970 Miles Davis received the first gold record of his life, for Bitches Brew, a sonic eye opener that experimented with electric instruments and rock and funk rhythms--a strange, primal, remarkable album. Soon, however, a whole generation of musicians was squandering its talents on increasingly vapid (though profitable) jazz-rock hybrids that came to be called fusion. Known today as smooth jazz, or as "that crap they play when Regis and Kathie Lee go to commercial," fusion continues to thrive; it even has its own Billboard chart. But in more sober musical circles, it is considered a kind of moral stain.
And yet unsmooth jazz has grown restive again. Recent months have seen a number of albums push the boundaries of the music, making thoughtful attempts at mixing jazz with contemporary pop or, even more promisingly, world music. And so on one hand you have woodwind player Don Byron cutting Nu Blaxploitation (Blue Note), an album of overtly political funk and rap; it's not an entirely felicitous concept, but what a treat to hear Byron's clarinet--the fuddy-duddy instrument of Woody Allen!--snaking in and out of dark, fertile electric grooves. On the other hand you have saxophonist David Murray recording his latest album, Creole (Justin Time), in Guadeloupe with local musicians, his bluesy, barrelhouse tenor joyously mixing it up with Caribbean rhythms and melodies--for Africa's musical diaspora, a frequent-flyer-age reunion.
Jazz musicians are also beginning to grapple with the wealth of potential standards written after 1960, an off-and-on trend renewed in earnest a few years ago when vocalist Cassandra Wilson turned the Monkees' Last Train to Clarksville into a torchy, caramelized ballad nearly worthy of Billie Holiday. Herbie Hancock followed with The New Standard, an entire album of rock-era tunes in which he improvised on changes derived from the Beatles, Sade and Kurt Cobain, among others. Joshua Redman's forthcoming Timeless Tales (for Changing Times) (Warner Bros.) covers similar ground, with songs by Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles again; included is a winning, credibly swinging version of Eleanor Rigby--some surprise for those of us who will slowly peel the skin off our faces if we ever hear the original again. But isn't transformation (and occasionally transcendence) one of jazz's raisons d'etre?