Re: Scott Henderson Jazz Fusion Improvisation Pdf Download
Julia Heaslet
I started listening to Albert King, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, the guys that started that style. Same thing happened to me in jazz. When I got into jazz, I really was turned on to fusion. Billy Cobhams "Spectrum", John Mc Laughlin "Birds of Fire", Chick Corea "Light As A Feather", Weather Report. I didnt know at that time that those guys were also influenced by a way older generation of jazz musicians. When I discovered that, I started listening to straight ahead jazz, Miles Davis and John Coltrane kind of jazz. Just from being my age, I heard second generation music first and then I went back and discovered the older forms of jazz and blues. That was a fun experience! (Laughs)
Now I have a good realization of the history of the music that Im playing.
Scott Henderson: Yes. It wasnt a band that toured, it was a band here in LA and we played on weekends. I played in blues bands in Florida when I was growing up. They played only blues. But when I got my first record deal, I was already playing jazz and fusion with Tribal Tech.
Scott Henderson: Sure, in the States! Especially if the music is somewhat eclectic. The main thing over here is, we have big media problems. People that do weirder kind of music, jazz, fusion or blues, there is not a big radio market for it, like there is in other countries. As a result of that, people dont get to hear the music and they dont show up at the gigs. And that does make me mad. Weve been trying to change that in the USA ever since I was a little kid and it just doesnt ever happen. We get played on college radio stations only. And that makes it really hard, because if people dont hear the stuff on the radio, they re not gonna buy it, unless a friend turns them on to it. I cant imagine someone driving in their car, turning on the radio and hearing one of my songs. This wouldnt happen. That makes me mad, because Im working as hard as anybody else on my music and I feel I ought to have the opportunity to be heard by the public.
Thick is an album by the fusion jazz band Tribal Tech released in 1999. As a contrast to Tribal Tech's previous recordings, the album features less compositional material and is based largely on improvisation.
Jazz fusion (sometimes called Jazz Rock) is typified by straight (as opposed to swung) rhythms, electric instrumentation (rhodes, synths, electric guitar and bass), and freeform improvisation and song structure that form a continuation the free jazz style of the 50s and 60s.
Harmonically, jazz fusion tends to eschew more traditional harmonic forms such as the II-V-I. Early fusion typically incorporated both modal and funk elements. This form of fusion would eventually become the funk- and R&B-influenced smooth jazz of the 80s. Later fusion, such as Holdsworth, tends towards rather esoteric modal structures, shifting tonal centers, and unusually voiced chords with large intervalic leaps.
4-note-per-string scales,
triad pairs and,
tritone division soloing,
... which you can bring to your to your jazz guitar improvisation that will immediately add that modern jazz sound to your ideas, and that are relatively easy to apply to the guitar and to tunes that you are working on.
Finally, after six years of blowing minds on YouTube, Mancuso has released his first album, The Journey, on the Players Club/Mascot Label Group. And rather than just showcasing his prodigious and unprecedented chops on yet another string of well-chosen covers from the jazz and fusion canons, the 26-year-old has written all original material for this eagerly awaited debut, each already garnering hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.
Holdsworth and all the fusion guys came later for me, when I was around 17. Allan is for sure one of my biggest influences, especially when it came down to phrasing and vocabulary. He was such a big influence, in fact, that I stopped listening to him for a while, because I started sounding too much like him. So I started listening to other players, like Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale, Robben Ford... All the jazz-rock guys. And I basically built my vocabulary through these players. So yeah, Allan is such a big influence that I had to stop listening to him too much. He changed the guitar forever, I think.
Renaud Louis-Servais is clearly a gifted composer as well as a great guitarist. He and his group of world-class musicians have produced a classic jazz fusion album that, in my opinion, will live on as such.
When bassist Gary Willis began working on No Sweat, his first solo album, he decided to take a novel approach seen less and less in today's jazz world: he let the spirit of the music guide him. Willis' uncompromising approach is one he's stuck to throughout his main gig with Tribal Tech, the adventurous fusion quartet from California he co-leads with guitarist Scott Henderson. Since the mid-'80s, the group has released seven studio albums of ballsy jazz-rock that proudly spit in the face of fashion.
That same disdain for trends permeates No Sweat. The disc is a fun, no-holds-barred fusion outing that focuses on improvisation, lengthy jams and intricate interaction between the players involved. No Sweat finds drummer Dennis Chambers, saxophonist Steve Tavaglione and Tribal Tech keyboardist Scott Kinsey combining with Willis' supple, yet fiery fretless bass lines. The result is some of the most refreshing instrumental music of recent memory.
Having spent the last 10 years as a studio musician, Brett has been involved with numerous projects ranging from jazz, fusion, rock and R&B. His influences are widely diverse, crossing over several different genres of music and include such players as Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Eric Clapton.
Scott Jones is playing all over my 2013 new soon to be release jazz/fusion record and I must say he is one of my all time favorite musicians. His musicality, feel, chops and personality is hard to come by. I would recommend Scott to do any kind of sessions, tours, concerts, lessons, etc
This is without doubt the best jazz/rock/fusion album I have heard in over 3 years and will be in heavy rotation on my CD player for a long time to come. This comes with my highest recommendation for a brilliant release that surely heralds the arrival of a name synonymous with the biggest names in the game.
Improvisers who mastered outside playing that you should listen to, obsessively:
John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, John Scofield, Allan Holdsworth, Scott Henderson, David Liebman, Richie Beirach. All reputable jazz and fusion improvisers are well-versed in this concept, but those are a few who impacted MY approach, through the years.
Although he sadly died just as Pluto entered the hard working, dues paying, super reality based astrological sign of Capricorn on November 27, 2008, Pekka Pohjola was a musical genius and hes badly missed one year later. Amazingly, now in early December 2009, just about a year after I heard that Pekka had died, I opened up a new CD, entitled Clockwork from Australian guitarist Glenn Cannon. So it goes like clockworkyoure born, you die and in between life is all about clockwork! So I put on Glenns CD and lo and behold, with a dose of Holdsworth-ian style fretboard pyrotechnics, Clockwork is just the kind of album Pekka would have admired and in fact its a little in the vein of Pekkas final workplaying with guitarist Tuppu Orrennma on Tuppu's 2008 Make My Day CD. Backed up by a host of great players, including drummer Danny Farrugia, a full band and a bunch of string players that rarely get in the way, Cannons Clockwork is a veritable instrumental jazz-rock classic for the new millennium. Theres enough daredevil fretboard moves to make it of interest to jazz-rock fusion buffs but the whole CD is so well recorded that it could clearly cross over to rock fans with an open ear to instrumental rock and to those CD buffs interested in bringing the sound of jazz fusion into their collection. www.GlennCannonMusic.com
In England, the jazz fusion movement was headed by Nucleus, led by Ian Carr, and whose key players Karl Jenkins and John Marshall both later joined the seminal jazz rock band Soft Machine, leaders of what became known as the Canterbury scene. Their best-selling recording, Third (1970), was a double album featuring one track per side in the style of the aforementioned recordings of Miles Davis. A prominent English band in the jazz-rock style of Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago was If, who released a total of seven records in the 1970s.
Allan Holdsworth is a guitarist who performs in jazz, fusion, and rock styles. Other guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen have praised his fusion playing. He often used a SynthAxe guitar synthesizer in his recordings of the late 1980s, which he credits for expanding his composing and playing options. Holdsworth has continued to release fusion recordings and tour worldwide. Another former Soft Machine guitarist, Andy Summers of The Police, released several fusion albums in the early 1990s.
Fusion shred guitar player, and session musician Greg Howe has released solo albums such as Introspection (1993), Uncertain Terms (1994), Parallax (1995), Five (1996), Ascend (1999), Hyperacuity (2000), Extraction (2003) with electric bassist Victor Wooten and drummer Dennis Chambers, and Sound Proof (2008). Howe combines elements of rock, blues and Latin music with jazz influences using a technical, yet melodic guitar style. Ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy formed the band Liquid Tension Experiment with guitarist John Petrucci, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and bass guitarist Tony Levin. Their style blended the complex rhythms of jazz fusion and progressive rock along with the heavy sound of progressive metal.
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