Don't Call It Fusion

By BRUCE HANDY

Fusion is back, although it never really went away, as the piles of gold lying around Kenny G.'s house would prove if only we could see them. Confused? Here's a brief refresher:

In the '60s, many jazz musicians found themselves marginalized by rock and soul. Then in 1970 Miles Davis received the first gold record of his life, for Bitches Brew, a sonic eye opener that experimented with electric instruments and rock and funk rhythms--a strange, primal, remarkable album. Soon, however, a whole generation of musicians was squandering its talents on increasingly vapid (though profitable) jazz-rock hybrids that came to be called fusion. Known today as smooth jazz, or as "that crap they play when Regis and Kathie Lee go to commercial," fusion continues to thrive; it even has its own Billboard chart. But in more sober musical circles, it is considered a kind of moral stain.

And yet unsmooth jazz has grown restive again. Recent months have seen a number of albums push the boundaries of the music, making thoughtful attempts at mixing jazz with contemporary pop or, even more promisingly, world music. And so on one hand you have woodwind player Don Byron cutting Nu Blaxploitation (Blue Note), an album of overtly political funk and rap; it's not an entirely felicitous concept, but what a treat to hear Byron's clarinet--the fuddy-duddy instrument of Woody Allen!--snaking in and out of dark, fertile electric grooves. On the other hand you have saxophonist David Murray recording his latest album, Creole (Justin Time), in Guadeloupe with local musicians, his bluesy, barrelhouse tenor joyously mixing it up with Caribbean rhythms and melodies--for Africa's musical diaspora, a frequent-flyer-age reunion.

Jazz musicians are also beginning to grapple with the wealth of potential standards written after 1960, an off-and-on trend renewed in earnest a few years ago when vocalist Cassandra Wilson turned the Monkees' Last Train to Clarksville into a torchy, caramelized ballad nearly worthy of Billie Holiday. Herbie Hancock followed with The New Standard, an entire album of rock-era tunes in which he improvised on changes derived from the Beatles, Sade and Kurt Cobain, among others. Joshua Redman's forthcoming Timeless Tales (for Changing Times) (Warner Bros.) covers similar ground, with songs by Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder and the Beatles again; included is a winning, credibly swinging version of Eleanor Rigby--some surprise for those of us who will slowly peel the skin off our faces if we ever hear the original again. But isn't transformation (and occasionally transcendence) one of jazz's raisons d'etre?

"We're coming up on the new millennium. It's time to tamper with things," says Christian McBride, a 27-year-old bass player who has recorded with everyone from Betty Carter to Diana Krall. A Family Affair (Verve), his third album as a leader, was released last summer. It includes some smart electric tunes (though listeners who actually lived through the 1970s may not be eager to reacquaint themselves with the sound of Moog synthesizers) but reaches its peak with an acoustic, rhythmically virtuosic version of the Sly Stone title song that somehow manages to swing while also suggesting the original funk beat. McBride says he's trying to provoke: "How many more concept albums can you handle? Such and Such plays the music of Gershwin--a lot of that is getting so tired." He points out that when it comes to pop, his generation grew up listening not to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole but to Stone and Michael Jackson; it's only natural that, having already explored the standard standards (i.e., their grandparents' pop), adventurous young musicians would now want to explore music they themselves once made out to.

Another kind of agenda is advanced by Danilo Perez's Central Avenue (Impulse!), one of the fall's most passionate and enjoyable albums. Perez wants to broaden the Latin jazz palette beyond Cuba to embrace the entire hemisphere. And why stop there? In one cut, the 32-year-old pianist works in motifs from his native Panama as well as Brazil, Cuba, the Middle East (via Spain) and, thanks to the contributions of a tabla player, India. Perez sees a pendulum effect at work: after a period of retrenchment, jazz, as it often has been in the past, is in a more acquisitive mood. "It's like religion," Perez says. "We are all looking for the oneness in music. To me that's the force that moves an artist." Playfulness and wit seem to get a few licks in too, all of which may even give fusion a reputable name.