Spotlight On Jazz Fusion

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A quick survey of our catalog for songs tagged with the word “jazz” shows the word can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Well groomed Berklee educated traditionalists and dreadlocked saxophone screamers alike lay claim to the genre. Here’s a sampling of what we found in our vaults that falls into […]

Margin Of Safety

A quick survey of our catalog for songs tagged with the word “jazz” shows the word can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Well groomed Berklee educated traditionalists and dreadlocked saxophone screamers alike lay claim to the genre. Here’s a sampling of what we found in our vaults that falls into that perfectly unpredictable genre called “Jazz/Rock Fusion.”

The Supreme Quartet

The [mp3com-artist]Supreme Quartet[/mp3com-artist] is a pretty good example of what we traditionally call jazz fusion. Two of the band’s member (Tommy Beekman and Dean Christesen) are music students at Virginia Commonwealth while their foils (Court Eccles and Dave Eargle) study on the other side of the country. When they’re back together in their home of Springfield, VA, they often join Jared Bookbinder to make a quintet and jam on cuts like this called “Good Gravy.” Dare we guess they’ve been listening to some of the classic CTI sets of the 70s?

[mp3com-download url=”http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/81098779/Good%2BGravy.mp3″ artist=”The Supreme Quartet” song=”Good Gravy” email=”none” year=”2011″ label=”Supreme Quartet”/]

Margin Of Safety

[mp3com-artist]Margin of Safety[/mp3com-artist] are a Finnish band that draw on the dual influences of both jazz fusion and 70s prog-rock. Consisting of drummer/percussionist Mika Hiironnniemi, bassist Petri Koivistoinen and guitarist Jari Schroderus, Margin of Safety bend a penchant for extended guitar jams in musical meditations reminiscent of [mp3com-artist]Santana[/mp3com-artist] during his Devadip days.

[mp3com-download url=”http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/40974947/Sideburn.mp3″ artist=”Margin of Safety” song=”Sideburn” email=”none” year=”2011″ label=”Margin of Safety”/]

[mp3com-artist]Drop Trio[/mp3com-artist] call themselves a “melody-driven jazz band” hailing from Houston, Texas. By their own observation “Houston isn’t the greatest city in the world for live jazz,” but this band is out to make a change. Saying they “don’t really fit in with the avant-garde, the martini sippers or the purists” they’re simply out to entertain “the young cats who like their jazz a bit funked up with lots of energy.”

This track, “L.U.G.” can be found a couple different live albums.

[mp3com-download url=”http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/28395059/L.U.G..mp3″ artist=”Drop Trio” song=”L.U.G.” email=”none” year=”2005″ label=”Drop Trio”/]