The difference between Fusion and Fusion
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Music Lounge
Forum Description: General progressive music discussions
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9013
Printed Date: July 18 2025 at 06:20
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Topic: The difference between Fusion and Fusion
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Subject: The difference between Fusion and Fusion
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 18:50
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What is the difference between the kind of Fusion that is listed in the archives and the bands that are not listed? Apparently, that genre is widely open for interpretation. Among others, bands like Bozzio Levin Stevens and Derek Sherinian are listed as Fusion artists. When I listen to the Sherinian albums, I can't understand why other similar artists are not included, for example Jeff Beck, Marty Friedman, Tony MacAlpine, Eric Johnson, Scott Henderson, ... even Satriani and Vai are similar, but borderline (please don't make this a "artist XYZ isn't prog" thread, we have enough of them already). Another area that is not included is Jazz Fusion ... at least bands like Tribal Tech are missing. Is there a definition of some kind of "Prog Fusion"? Or is Fusion on this website just used as a catch-all genre for bands that don't fit anywhere else (like Zappa)? ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to: 
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Replies:
Posted By: Zac M
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 18:55
| I was wondering the same thing while listening to Jean-Luc Ponty.....it seems like he would be on the site, but that's just my opinion... |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 18:57
Don't you mean Fision and Fusion? ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 18:58
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A split decision ... ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Snow Dog wrote:
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 18:59
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Don't you mean "Fission"? -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 19:04
Probably ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 20:16
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On this site 'fusion' is now wide open to interpetation, and lost any
relevant and tight meaning. The jazz rock fusion and other jazz fusion
discussion groups elsewhere on the web appear to be more sensible and
far less ambiguous with their meanings - therefore they know what other
contributors are writing about!!! So from the beginning again (and boring as it seems I've now written about and argued the semantics of this subject for a decade): Fusion: a fusion of two or more different musical genres. Jazz fusion: the fusion of jazz with one or more other musical genres. Jazz rock (fusion): a fusion of jazz with rock, and sometimes too other musical genres. Hot Rats has been sometimes called the best hybrid of jazzwith rock..... Rock jazz: used once upon a time for bands that used jazz to a limited extent (e.g. Nice), but the term also took in brass rock groups such as Chicago, BST and even If. Jazz funk: jazz funked up with soul music, from Herbie Hancock to Stevie Wonder, to Tower Of Power (also brass rockers) to Kelvinator, and probably Miles Davis from Jack Johnson and Bitches Brew onwards, was more jazz funk than jazz rock, ( on We Want Miles Mike Stern pushed Davis deeper into jazz rock), and the current cutting edge is David Fuiczynski. Nu.fusion: newer form of jazz rock, where newer rhythms are employed - started in the mid 90's by American Jon Hassell, now lead by separate Norwegians, Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvaer. Jazz drum'n'bass - where real d and b are used, for instance Wayne Krantz's rhythm section formed Boomish - while the best selling Swedish group EST employ D & B in straighter new jazz (sometimes called nu.jazz). World jazz fusion: jazz fused with one or another form of world musics, e.g. Indo-jazz fusion (the first jazz fusion group formed in 1965 was called Joe Harriott/John Mayer's Indo Jazz Fusions, Shakti, Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu, etc.), Arab jazz fusion (often with the oud as lead), gypsy jazz (perhaps the oldest type dating back to the late 30's with Django Reinhart and nowadays associated with Birelli Lagrene, and E. European musicians). Afro-jazz started out of South Africa (Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breathe) but now strong (sub-Saharan) regional variations can be heard. When African musicians move to cosmopolitan cities allsorts of new jazz based musics can be heard, e.g. ZuBop in London or Magic Malik in Paris. Flamenco jazz: e.g. touched upon by McLaughlin, DiMeola, DeLucia. Folk jazz: jazz fused with folk (usually Anglo Celtic or Anglo/West European folk - so strictly a sub-division of world jazz) e.g. Danny Thompson's solo work, some of John Martyn's (eg. Live At Leeds), Jan Garbarek with Agne Buen Garnas on Rosensfole. And some some particular cases of jazzrock merged with Japanese influences - Kazumi Watanabe, or Vietnamese folk with jazz: Ngugen Le. Then serious/classical music with jazz: ranging from the plainsong with Jan Garbarek sax improvi.e. his collaboration with the Hillaird Ensemble (what drummer Steve Smith impromptually told me was 'monk jazz'!!) to Jacques Loussier or MJQ messing with Bach - or Stravinski and Bernstein writing for jazz musicians. Then we get to the specifics of progressive rock merged with jazz, known as 'progressive fusion' - and perhaps where the root of confusion lies. Specifically members of Dream Theater getting together with well known members of other bands, to play instrumentals that included some improv - but was it strictly jazz improv????? Hence Liquid Tension Experiment (aka Contact Angle Goniometry - an obscure surface physicist's joke btw). Then Bozzio Levin and Steven arrived as Black Light Syndrome and the floodgates went down. The Fr. Canadian label Unicorn records seems to have a number of prog fusion groups signed - Spaced Out being an excellent start point. Jam jazz - yet another ambiguous and so confusing term, which include Medeski Martin and Woods and Bela Fleck & The Flecktones. Then Bela Fleck you're reminded that Country music in its various forms has regularly been hybridised with jazz, e.g.more recent work by Bill Frisell and hints of it in earlier Pat Metheny Group albums. So went anybody uses the word 'fusion' alone wrt to music, I cringe. |
Posted By: Shack Man
Date Posted: July 21 2005 at 20:49
| Fusion = music. listen to it, and like it, or don't like it. Don't get caught up in what different music should be called. |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 06:34
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Yes that my theory but it doesn't always work in practice. How do you explain what a type of music is about, when a sample of a band's music is not available (and even if a sample is available, is it representative)? Nobody goes out and buys records purely because they like the name of a band but have no clue to the music - is there anybody who likes absolutely every type of music there is to be heard? You have to use terms correctly to provide clues - definitions devised properly will help give clues. I see terms use don this site with considerable degrees of ambiguity, and know the newies trying to find out about various types of music, are going to be confusion - worse, end up buying records they wouldn't like. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 06:43
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DickHeath: You seem to know a great deal about Fusion ... how would you categorize these albums: The Mistakes, Mike Keneally (albums like Sluggo! or Hat), Tribal Tech, Eric Johnson - Venus Isle, Tony MacAlpine - Chromaticity They all represent different types of Fusion to me. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: gulliman
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 07:32
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I am not familiar with these: The Mistakes, Mike Keneally (albums like Sluggo! or Hat), Tribal Tech, Eric Johnson - Venus Isle. BUT... Tony MacAlpine - Chromaticity is a good example of metal-fusion, imo. As are all Planet X albums, Derek Sherinian's solo stuff, Jordan Rudess (at least his last two solo albums are clear metal-fusion for me), Steve Vai, Matalex (though I heard only their Jazz Grunge), Mindflowers, Michael Harris (Distorted Views, Sketches From The Thought Chamber)... and quite many others. Btw, this is one of my favorite sub-genres of prog. |
Posted By: Shack Man
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 07:44
Well Yeah for sure, I entirely agree. Its just crazy when some people go nuts about what something precisely and absolutely should be called. |
Posted By: GoldenSpiral
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 07:57
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So has it been decided by the collaborators that jazz rock bands (i.e. scott henderson, vital information, tribal tech, etc.) are not prog and shall not be a part of the archives? Personally, I could go either way on it. it can be justified that they should be here, it could be justified to leave them out. However, we have included weather report.... ------------- http://www.myspace.com/altaic" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/altaic ALTAIC "Oceans Down You'll Lie" coming soon |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:01
The Mistakes and Mike Keneally are Jazz Fusion, lots of improvisation and weird tonal concepts ... much like Zappa (Mike Keneally was his "stunt" guitarist on the 1988 tour). Tribal Tech is Funky Jazz Fusion ... a perfect example of a kind of Fusion that I would not call Prog anymore, it's too close to Jazz. Eric Johnson was part of a 70s Fusion band called "Electromagnets", which had not much success, but was noetheless brilliant. Today, his solo albums contain a tasty mix from many genres, mainly blues. But his playing, arrangement and tonal concepts are quite advanced, and I'd call it Prog (Fusion). The "Metal Fusion" is something to argue about ... I agree that artists like Vai belong to that category, and should be included in the archives. Not just because they are similar to artists that are already listed (Sherinian), but because the play progressive Fusion. Then again there are those who believe that the entire genre doesn't belong here ... it's an interesting topic. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:05
IMO that's a good decision, because these bands are closer to Jazz than Prog, and I don't think that they would refer to their music as "Prog". It would be nice if there was a section of progarchives that deals with music that is not exactly prog ... I believe that something like that is being discussed by the admins. But I guess that it would consume too much time on part of the collaborators and admins ... if so, I'd rather want them to focus on PROG. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: philippe
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:06
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Since when Marty Friedman and others shreders play fusion music? (I know that Mc Alpine is called as a fusion guitarist but it remains too discreet). Al Di Meola, Allan Wholdsworth and few others are really fusion guitarists...why are you always looking for progressive elements where they don't exist? ------------- 
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Posted By: GoldenSpiral
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:06
We need to break off and form progmetalarchives.com so we can include all these great bands that some of the folks around here are too stubborn to accept! ------------- http://www.myspace.com/altaic" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/altaic ALTAIC "Oceans Down You'll Lie" coming soon |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:11
You'll discover that early jazz rock fusion bands (Soft Machine, Mahavishnu Orchestra, RTF Weather Report, through to Tasavallan Presidentti) are included. Simply because progressive music bands of the late 60's and early 70's, were those who fused rock with other genres - soo you couldn't exclude jazz, when folk, serious/classical and other musical genres were being included. Besides bands like Nice often went jazzy and used jazz session musicians - John Surman for instance. The question as to whether or not to include later bands, as historically the debatable and often irrational terminology of jazz rock into jazz rock fusion (then some into smooth jazz (fuzak)), and so on took place. When reliable jazz rock pundits, nowadays list Tribal Tech and separately Scott Henderson, or Jonas Hellberg as having produced seminal jazz rock albums, along with the obvious but earlier ones by Davis, MO, RTF, Billy Cobham and WR, you hit one area of inconsistency here at Progarchives. |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:14
You don't know your Holdsworth then - some reference points: UK in the late 70's, Soma in the late 80's to K2 in 2005, are prog. |
Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:16
I agree. It s like quibbling over what sub genre of Hip Hop 'Roots Manuver' fits into. Who cares? If it sounds good listern to it, if it dont then dont!
------------- Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy! |
Posted By: GoldenSpiral
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:21
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While on the topic (though I'm not suggesting submitting them for admission to the site), If anyone is interested, one of my favorite jazz rock collaborations has been Gambale-Hamm-Smith, a jazz rock supergroup consisting of Frank Gambale on guitars, Stu Hamm on bass, and Steve Smith (ex-Journey, turned jazz drummer). Also, of course, Vital Tech Tones (Scott Henderson, Steve Smith, Victor Wooten). ------------- http://www.myspace.com/altaic" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/altaic ALTAIC "Oceans Down You'll Lie" coming soon |
Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:27
Keneally is musician who freely crosses many a musical border, pigeonhoing him 'jazz fusion' is most misleading especially to those who don't know his work (and this came up about a month or so ago). He is quite at home doing a tremendous version of Siberian Khatru or play on a Gentle Giant Tribute, or playing dozens of Steve Howe riffs at high speed (Faithful Axe), or playing keys for Vai or Satriani - is his piano transcription of Vai compositions out yet?? The Beer For Dolphin album nor Hat sound jazz fusion to me. Surely a musician who apprenticed with Frank Zappa and now developing the traditions of the Zappa school of rock, but very much his own man. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:31
Sorry if that impression has come across ... I didn't mean to say that Mike Keneally is limited to Jazz Fusion. But he did a lot of Jazz Fusion, and since on this website Zappa is already "pigeonholed" as Fusion ... things can't get much worse than that, can they? ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 08:36
I didn't mean to say that Marty Friedman is Prog. But he did several albums that might be considered Metal-Fusion, and THAT is exactly what Derek Sherinian does. And both of these artists use progressive elements a LOT. Personally, I don't think that that's enough to call them Prog in a "Prog Rock" sense, but it's enough for including them in the archives. BTW: I know that you're biased against metal ... but does it have to be all or nothing? Can't I say that Friedman uses progressive elements - that doesn't mean that I would put him anywhere near the Prog masters. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Dick Heath
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 09:27
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Supports my case...... |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 22 2005 at 09:38
I think that you can use genres in a meaningful way, but you have to apply them to albums, not artists. And for some albums, you even have to apply the genres to each track. And even then, there are albums or tracks that are not limited to a single genre. How do you label a track like "Zomby Woof"? I don't know ... ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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