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Originally Posted by DDDorian  I tend to go through phases of loving and hating fusion, I guess it's pretty obvious which one I'm in now, heh. So much of it is pure cheese that I often don't have the patience to search for the good stuff. Holdsworth and Zappa are constants, although I wouldn't really call either of them "fusion" myself. |
So many different things are called "fusion" nowadays, that the term is almost meaningless. I think "electric jazz" or "jazz-rock" are actually more meaningful terms.
I'm kind of a weird bird because I don't really care much for traditional jazz guitar. I like the gutsier/bluesier style of Wes Montgomery and George Benson, but the pure bebop guys never did it for me. Too fussy. I listen to horn players more than anything else, and my favorite guitarists seem to be the noisier ones who've tried to emulate Coltrane, like McLaughlin and Holdsworth. I try to add some spare Mile Davis melodies into my Coltrane-style "sheets of sound," too.
Funny thing is, lately I've even been gravitating towards fusion bands without guitar, such as Weather Report and Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, as well as all of the great funk-fusion from the mid-70s. I find that I get better ideas for my own stuff by not listening to people who do sort of the same thing (albeit probably a lot better than I do).