5 Jazz Fusion Guitar Legends

One of my favorite things about great fusion guitarists is their ability to blend a mixture of rock & blues with a deep knowledge of jazz language and beyond. “Fusion” literally means just that...a fusing of a few, or often many, genres, eventually morphing into its own umbrella that includes everything from Weather Report to Tribal Tech or Airto Moreira and Herbie Hancock. One obvious tenet of Jazz Fusion was the inclusion of electric instruments, which opened up a whole world of improvising through sounds, tones, effects and textures. The guitar established itself quickly as being a core part of this new sound, with players like Larry Coryell, John McClaughin and Al Di Meola paving the way for generations of axe-wielding folk. I wanted to highlight some specific great moments throughout the range of Jazz Fusion guitar history, using 5 different players. Between my analysis and the video, you should have a pretty good understanding of what makes these brief moments so memorable, and integral to the language of this music. Remember that transcribing is not just learning notes and rhythms...try to unpack their tone, articulation, phrasing, and feel (do they lay back in certain moments?). The way Scofield plays his 8th notes lines is wildly different than Kurt Rosenwinkel for instance. Larry Carlton on Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” (2:42 - 2:47) No need to introduce Larry Carlton...he’s played with everyone and then some. His work with Steely Dan speaks for himself, and his solo on this track really captures his ability to combine tasteful idiomatic language with some effective navigating of the changes. This 2-measure part of the solo is split up in 2 phrases. Notices these things: • The first measure arpeggiates a C major triad, then uses notes entirely from the C major pentatonic scale • Check out the pivoting he uses with the “E” on the G-string bouncing back and forth between 5 notes moving up the pentatonic scale. This creates a lot of motion without a lot of effort. • The 2nd measure has a similar pivot sound but backwards, this time using a top note (C) to bounce the lines downwards. Notice how the notes change to fit the Bb13 chord, we now have a Bb and Ab. • He again uses the same C major arpeggio as in the beginning, but this time going backwards. This C triad over a Bb7 creates the 13#11 sound. • The mileage he gets out of this little position of the neck is great, and his ability to have such a complete musical phrase in just a little over two measures is astounding! For more great moments of Carlton with Steely Dan & Company check out these tracks: Don’t Take Me Alive (Steely Dan) Third World Man (Steely Dan) New Frontier (Donald Fagen) Mike Stern on Miles Davis’s “Jean Pierre” (5:58 - 6:05) Another ubiquitous name in Fusion history is Mike Stern. From his sideman work with Miles Davis and Jaco Pastorious to his own legendary solo career, Mike is a serious force in the development of fusion language on the guitar. His extended solo on “Jean Pierre”, a simple A7 vamp tune, is a classic. • This excerpt is almost entirely comprised of pentatonic sounds and shapes, superimposing these over the original harmony • The first phrase is all Eb/Cm pentatonic, against the A7 this creates a major tonality a tritone away • He then shifts up a half-step and plays in E/C#m for the next part of that measure and a little bit over the barline before stepping back into Eb/Cm quickly • He ends the line by going into C/Am pent. Bringing us back into the tonic harmony • Besides the harmonic movement, the coolest part about these lines are the rhythmic phrasing. Although the basic rhythmic value is 16th note triplets, he groups them in different ways to get an “over the barline” sound • Notice how the first ascending line is all grouped in 3’s, then when he jumps to the E maj. Pent, he plays his triplets in 3 groupings of 4. • What’s even more striking is that he starts this new grouping of 4 on the 3rd partial of the triplet (end of beat 2, measure 1), which skews the line over the barline. The E maj. Tonality ends on 2nd partial of the first triplet in m. 2 • Again, he plays another grouping of 4 starting on the 3rd partial in m. 2 (Eb maj. pent) then quickly shifts to normal triplet groupings in the C maj. Pent., ending us solidly back in the original groove and tonality • This all is a clever usage of basic idiomatic shapes that are moved around both rhythmically and harmonically. Check out these other great Mike Stern cuts: Chromazone One World Friday Night At The Cadillac Club (Bob Berg) John Scofield on “Groove Elation” (1:51 - 1:57) ‘Sco. ‘Nuff said! One of the great masters of music. Scofield has an uncanny way of navigating any changes hard or simple with great ease, patience, grit and a bit of humor as well. He is a great example of how you can use the instrument itself in unique ways to drastically change your tone, timbre and pitch, simply by picking in a different part of the bridge or bending a string up off the fretboard entirely. The title track from “Groove Elation” is a stellar example of his ability to play simply while laying down a deep groove and using extended harmony. • It’s obvious right off the bat that he is using a rhythmic motif to drive this line. For the first 3 measures he uses the same motif starting on the and of 1 and 3. • Great masters of rhythm know that you have to combine on and off beats, and you can see that clearly in this example. After he uses the off-beat rhythmic motif for three measures, the next two all have distinct downbeat driven phrases • Note-wise he sticks with small intervals within an Eb7 sound for those first two measures • He then brings it outside in m. 3-4, implying alternate changes of Em7 and A7, which is a tri-tone sub of Bbm7 and Eb7 which would be the traditional turnaround to the IV chord. This is a very common harmonic substitution that once you get in your ears, you will hear used very often by players like Bill Evans or Bobby Broom. • Notice how the first three measures are sparse, and in the 4th measure he uses the most movement, as well as the most tension harmonically, before resolving very naturally into a basic triad. • This fragment is just perfect in every way. He uses rhythm and altered harmony to highlight tension and release. Any Scofield is great to listen to but check out: Wee Chank Do Like Eddie Carlos Rios on Gino Vannelli’s “Brother to Brother” (3:04 - 3:11) Besides the absolutely monstrous playing, I wanted to highlight this track because Gino Vannelli and Carlos Rios are probably not the first names you’d think of, or even know, when it comes to stellar fusion- adjacent music. Gino is a serious master singer, writer, arranger and educator. His albums range from a blistering meld of sophisticated pop with jazz fusion studio musicians (Jimmy Haslip, Vinnie Colaiuta) to collaborations with big bands and orchestras. Carlos Rios may not be a household studio guitarist name like Nile Rodgers or Steve Lukather, but he’s one of the baddest out there. For decades he’s established himself with the upper-echelon of artists like the Chick Corea Elektric Band, Lionel Richie and Boz Scaggs. This insane solo shows Carlos at his finest, blending screaming rock guitar with bebop lines to die for. This transcription has the most underlying harmonic movement, and I analyze it from the key of D major in my video. • In this segment, he immediately dives into jazz language throughout the entire 1st measure. Harmonically he is implying D7alt, (Eb melodic Minor) • Note that he treats the entire measure as this altered dominant tonality, instead of playing explicitly Am7 then D7 material. It’s pretty common to “lose” the ii chord, and just play V material which is a consistent practice of bop playing. • He resolves the V to I just slightly early, actually resolving to the G on the “and” of 4, again harkening to Charlie Parker type language by subtly anticipating a resolution. • Over the Gma7 he uses a combination of arpeggios (Gma7 and also Bm7) mixed with scalar phrases all within a G lydian (D major) general tonality. • He sticks with the same general range and location of the instrument in the 3rd full measure, but instead of explicitly outlining the C#m7b5 and F#7, he opts for more of the general D major material that we saw before, which generally fits pretty well and at that tempo doesn’t clash or seem broad. • Check out when he uses chromatic passing tones like in the end of the 1st full measure, end of the 2nd full measure and the middle of the 3rd full measure. These devices, coupled with scalar playing and arpeggiations really propel his lines forward with minimal effort. • This is another example where even though the underlying rhythmic value is the same (16th notes), he is able to use extended harmonies and over the barline phrasing to create energy and momentum. • Carlos clearly ends this long continuous line by addressing the sudden harmonic change and playing longer rhythms with a clear triadic harmony and ending (Eb major).

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