In the early 70’s Jazz musicians started fusing jazz with funk and other music forms and made a style of music termed ‘Fusion’. The movement was led by Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Grover Washington, Donald Byrd, Freddie Hubbard, Lonnie Liston Smith etc and sold millions.A whole movement built up and in this compilation many of the best tracks of the genre are featured, many appearing on CD for the first time. This compilation features tracks by lesser known but real jazz musicians playing outstanding fusion with an edge, funky fusion with attitude !!. All these tracks were recorded for independent labels, and are still owned independently now 30 years after release. You can imagine my surprise that we had to deal with Sonny Lester, Charles Tolliver and producer Nils Winther along with some of the artists themselves to license this material. Many of the tracks have become jazz club classics and have been exposed by DJ’s like Giles Peterson, Kevin Beadle, Russ Dewsbury, Patrick Forge, Eddie Pillar etc. Some of the tracks were popular when they came out and were played by Robbie Vincent in the ‘70’s, others are more obscure only coming to light in the last 10-15 years, but all are in demand and of the highest quality.
Track listings:
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01 Soul Turnaround by Walter Bishop, Jr.
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02 K High by Nat Adderley Septet
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03 First Come First Serve by Ramon Morris
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04 Out On The Coast by Larry Willis
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05 Like A Thief In The Night by Mike Longo
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06 Tomorrow’s End by Larry Bright
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07 First Impressions by Shamek Farrah
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08 Force Of Nature by Azar Lawrence
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09 Gazelle by Joe Henderson
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10 Padall by Chuck Flores
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11 Rise Of Atlantis by Carter Jefferson
Nick East (verified owner) –
An excellently sequenced comp. for lovers of jazz funk fusion. For me the balance between the funk and the jazz is too tipped in favour of the jazz, otherwise it would be five stars. Very nice.
Eamon (verified owner) –
It’s a bit too lightweight to be proper Fusion for my liking but it’s still a very good compilation.