Best rock-jazz fusion power trios?

**Robertkoa** · 03-03-2017, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by Chema Mrua

Although I've been following Holdsworth's career for many years, his trios from the last years are not too interesting for me. Maybe the first ones just after recording The Sixteen men of Tain.

Scott Henderson is always doing hot stuff. The trio that formed with Jeff Berlin and Dennis Chambers was a good one.

The only thing I don't like about this "star trios" tendency is that long ago they gave up composition and now just play what they have been playing all their lifes.

Just a personal opinion.

Not an Authority on Jazz but this is an inherent "Problem" in almost all Styles of Western Music ( maybe all ).

It takes quite a bit of sheer skill physically but especially CONCEPTUALLY to advance
the Music itself so since we are about 70 years beyond early Jazz Guitarists and about 50 years from Hendrix, Mahavishnu etc. 35 years from 80s Fusion and Rockers ( like Van Halen , Holdsworth )...we are far down the Time Stream .

And also the Composers who Created those Genres not just Guitarists.
So when someone learns the "vocabulary "
of a Style of Music and enough Technique ( and Mental Ability / Musical Skills ) to play it- they MENTALLY tend to think/ 'hear' ( mentally hear / imagine ) and thus
create in that or those' Styles'.
And not just Guitar but the Harmony/Rhythms/ Solos/ Structures etc.
It takes a real 'Transcendance' or 'view' to produce something that sounds unique or
fresh and not weird or outside partly because of the History and Mental Effect of the above.

As a Writer/ Composer this is a threshold that can be hard to cross and still sound good.

And the lower threshold is if you go too far
you may go out of the *Genre for your Audience but that's not as big IMO.

* "That's not really Jazz"....*"That's not really Rock"...
*"That's not really Egyptian Funk" *etc etc.

**Chema Mrua** · 03-03-2017, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by Robertkoa

Not an Authority on Jazz but this is an inherent "Problem" in almost all Styles of Western Music ( maybe all ).

It takes quite a bit of sheer skill physically but especially CONCEPTUALLY to advance
the Music itself so since we are about 70 years beyond early Jazz Guitarists and about 50 years from Hendrix, Mahavishnu etc. 35 years from 80s Fusion and Rockers ( like Van Halen , Holdsworth )...we are far down the Time Stream .

And also the Composers who Created those Genres not just Guitarists.
So when someone learns the "vocabulary "
of a Style of Music and enough Technique ( and Mental Ability / Musical Skills ) to play it- they MENTALLY tend to think/ 'hear' ( mentally hear / imagine ) and thus
create in that or those' Styles'.
And not just Guitar but the Harmony/Rhythms/ Solos/ Structures etc.
It takes a real 'Transcendance' or 'view' to produce something that sounds unique or
fresh and not weird or outside partly because of the History and Mental Effect of the above.

As a Writer/ Composer this is a threshold that can be hard to cross and still sound good.

And the lower threshold is if you go too far
you may go out of the *Genre for your Audience but that's not as big IMO.

* "That's not really Jazz"....*"That's not really Rock"...
*"That's not really Egyptian Funk" *etc etc.

That's exactly what I mean.

What the hell is that damn 'That's not really jazz'? Why the hell is that really important? Because the majority of the listeners want to hear something that they can recognize, something like they find familiar.

I'm tired to say it, but again: we are living right now the poorest time in terms of creativity since renaissance. Almost everybody is repeating the very same fucking clichés. Youtube is sad, a very powerful tool to spreading and sharing culture and almost everything you can find there is people trying to be stars making covers! Really? Covers? Where is our own voice, our spirit?

Another case: 'No, I don't do covers. I have my own style'

Absurd lie. Your music is relatively original. You don't do covers but you vomit with your sax/piano/guitar/voice, etc. the entire catalogue of patterns, set phrases and gestures you are supossed to vomit because you play JAZZ, or PROGRESSIVE METAL, GYPSY SWING or whatever. You recreate the hole script of echos from other people. Not your very own stuff but an imitation.

Why? Because people in the past used to think in terms of harmony, melody and rythm. People nowadays are too worried about the image and what other people can say or think of theirselfs, so the first thing to think of is style. Not harmony, not melody, but style. And when they have thought a lot about style and the composition has got some form, then they think about the melody and harmony. But by then it's late because de style thinking have delimited drasticly the way of how that music must sound.

John McLaughlin is one of the most critical musicians from that 60s-70s-80s period, saying things like he is very disappointed with the lack of creativity of the young generations.

**Fusionshred** · 03-07-2017, 03:16 PM

Overthinking.

One of the primary purposes of music is to convey - or elicit - an emotion. Since no one can have the exact same emotional reaction to something twice, every time it happens, something creative has occurred.

The phrases, scales, genre, tone, etc - these are not the MUSIC - these are the TOOLS.

If your language is English, you may in the course of your life make many compelling speeches, arguments, proposals, etc. You will never do it the exact same way twice - nor will any of them have the exact same result as previous ones. But you might use some of the WORDS you've used before - or some of the phrases that others have used in the past. It doesn't make your speech any less original or creative.

Of course, there is such a thing as plagiarism - and it can happen in music as it can in any other language.