TEN ESSENTIAL JAZZ ROCK ALBUMS | Must Haves!! 

Mike Stern‘s Solo on Fat Time is the greatest guitar solo ever. In deed. Thank you for saying this.

Another fine list, Andy. 3 things: 1. I gotta put a plug in for Sonny Sharrock's Ask the Ages, wth Sonny on guitar, Charnette Moffett on bass, Pharaoh Sanders on saxophone and Elvis Jones on drums (!!!), it's like Hendrix playing with Coltrane. Gorgeous ballads and epic rocking jazz improv. Incredible. 2. Also, I saw Mike Stern play a small club on Christopher Street in the West Village in the early 90s and he was ferocious. Memorable! 3. I love Allan Holdsworth's Atavachron. What a high point of the 80s! It's the secret jazz sister of Rush's Grace Under Pressure. Cold War paranoia, synthesizers, giant toms. Feel better soon!

Lenny White is such an insane drummer and a great composer as well. I've got to get more of his work.

Great Andy,I really love your Jazz-Rock-Fusion and other music Podcasts! I have seen and followed all the musicians you mention,Thanks for what you do!

Great to hear Lenny White getting some love. Feel better Andy

Brian Auger is one of my all time heroes and definitely a candidate for a full retrospective video Andy???

Thanks so much for this, Andy; I really enjoy these recommendations, which are always good, so when you bring up any albums that I haven't heard, it always gives me something to go seek out and experience; thanks always for your effort with these videos, and your other entertaining content. Get well !!

Thanks. Hope you feel better.

Another gem!. You're killing my budget. Thanks for getting out of bed, and feel better.

My favourite music is Stern, Sco, Metheny from the 80s and 90s...but love watching 😊

Andy, thanks for another f'n great video. Made my day. I've got most of these but need to get the khan and miles.

Good to hear about some of the less talked about stuff. Impeccable selection. Hope you get back to top form soon Andy.

uberjam is my current fave scofield band/project,where he mainly plays a telecaster in a funky/bluesy/jazzy style ,differnt from his chorusy sound,theres 2 uberjam albums if i remember

Great video Andy thanks very much 👍🤓

Beautiful selection Andy with all the guitar gods Stern, Khan, Holdsworth, Scofield... Still Warm is one of my all time favorites, cheers!!!

Thank You!

Love your channel, I feel like I'm getting the best education on Jazz from a PHD. You have turned me onto so many great albums. Can't thank you enough. Love from Texas.

Jeff Beck's There and Back, I bought that when it came out, wonderful!

Nice exploratory episode. Could use more so I can search out new sounds and musicians.

Great list, but what I like input is Jean Luc Ponty's Enigmatic Ocean.

Good video Andy, I've never heard of Allan Holdsworth until I subscribed to your channel. I do remember seeing Road Games but not picking it up. Jeff Berlin lives in my city of Nashville, I ought to look him since I'm a bassist also.

Great to see Still Warm getting some love….ive always said it should be taught in every music school. Great vid …thanks Andy

Greetings from Greece 🇬🇷Best narrative presenter for me! Keep the good work Andy 😂💜🥁💯

What a fantastic video have a wonderful day also a fantastic weekend Andy ❤😊

Well done 👏, amazing episode , day begins with Stanley Clarke breathing 🔥 on his S/T album , breathtaking stuff ❤

13:10 hilarious. I can totally relate to this, when I was teaching large course during the pandemic and my daughter came in asking whatever. (Great list!).

A great lineup of must have jazz rock albums.

Love the Simon Phillips story. Gret minds

Thanks and get well soon.

"coils of Wisdom, or something like that" Genius. Great video!

I was wondering if you were going to single out Jan's Moog solo in "Who Are They" and then....ah, you did. I still think that you are having us on about that album, but that track is on my desert Island imaginary compilation. Another fun video, especially the "Space Boogie" anecdote.

a pizzaesque album cover, through and through! thanks for another great video!

Great choices! The Simon Phillips story is priceless. I didn’t see Jan Hammer / Melodies or Bill Laswell / Basslines coming - - Wonderful well informed selections.

Really enjoying this list. Great idea to distinguish “essential” from “best ever”. Made me think that fascinating interviews would be Didier Malherbe, and Jonathan Wolff.

The Simon Phillips story is great! Being a Jeff Beck fan, I love "There & Back" and actually one of my favorite songs is the gentle, haunting "The Final Peace". It's a rare song with a Beck co-writing credit and it features just the Guv'nor and keyboardist Tony Hymas. As a teen/young man, that song was used as background music for a concert calendar segment on a local rock FM station. I feel my blood pressure go down and the heartbeats slow to a nice relaxing pace whenever I hear the magical Beck volume swells and bends with Tony's atmospheric synth acting as a cloud under Jeff's soaring sounds.

As a 70 year old fan of the genre this took me back to Miles’ electric albums, Memphis Underground, etc. Thanks - made my day It is interesting to note the driving influence drummers had -White, Cobham, Wiliams. We used to blow people out of the room with Tony Williams’ Emergency. Big refrigerator horn-loaded speakers playing terrifying music. I know two classical guitarist and they both like Allan Holdsworth. i will be a new subscriber.

Andy, you raided my album collection!! lol.

I first heard Ndugu on Jean-Luc Ponty's album Upon The Wings of Music. Very powerful and creative drumming indeed! And yes, he also played on Michael Jackson's classic Billy Jean.

Had me until the Holdsworth choice. Just never did it for me. But you brought it back with Venusian Summer, and then Laswell. As you do. It's why I remain subscribed. You'll occasionally have a daft pick, but you always pull through with gold in the end, Andy.

I watched this on Friday evening, was intrigued by the description of Jan Hammer's Melodies, checked out Who Are They? on RU-vid and really dug it. Immediately added the album to my wantlist and found a nice copy the very next day! That hardly ever happens. I'm on my 2nd listen and am really liking the mellower spacey tracks. The funky tracks are good too, but not as much my cup of tea. Prior to this I had only heard Jan as a band member on others' albums. I like what I hear and look forward to digging deeper. I guess I gotta get Oh Yeah now! I also picked up The First Seven Days based on hearing about it a while back on this channel.

Bill Laswell is a great underrated musician.

Great video again Andy. "The Pump" was used in Risky Business Out of curiosity what is the Colin Wilson Book in your Top shelf?

So many choices to make but I respect your judgment and knowledge, sir. If it was me I would have put Return to Forever's No Mystery in there. And maybe a Mahavishnu one (Inner Mounting Flame?)... but then there was Nucleus --- too much good stuff!

JOHN SCOFIELD BLUE MATTER & LOUD JAZZ ***** ***** / Gino' Vannelli =BROTHER TO BROTHER WHOLE LP ********** !! !!

My first Miles Davis album I bought was We Want Miles. The radio 3 show played about half of My Man Is Gone and Stern's explosive solos between his more straight ahead comping sold me instantly.

I saw Mike Stern and Eric Johnson on tour a few years back in Tucson, what a show.

1982! I'm quite buzzed... Mike Stern plays guitar with Miles on Saturday Night Like! (George Kennedy host episode!) I credit this with turning my 15 year old ass onto Jazz! Bought "We Want Miles"! Jazz could rock out like Deep Purple or Black Sabbath! Wow! Life changing!

Im 64years old was listening to most of this music in the 8th grade ✌️

I agree on that Stanley Clarke album...one of the early records that inspired me as a bass player

Andy, it's amazing, you still have all your hair! - You should do a video on how you maintain your hair - You will get a lot of views

I love hearing those artists names from the past - It was something we always did - read who played w who and who was on each track - had the Stanley , Weather report , Jan Hammer ( might still have it - looks like it isn't available anymore) - my fav 1st 7 Days ! - Saw Steve Jordan w the Stones last week - wow - he drove the beat - actually they were on Fire - Sympathy , Midnight Rambler, Paint it Black segment was insane - they played their asses off !

I think I once read Ndugu was recording another album at the same studio Weather Report was at when they began working on Tale Spinnin’, they were in between drummers at the time, asked Ndugu to do it and bam 💥 the rest is history, if true that’s pretty phenomenal to think the drumming is almost completely off the cuff

John Martyn "Live at Leeds" Danny Thompson on the bass John Stevens on drums Outside in Fluid Staggering Free Don't you guys know 'nuffin? Existentially yours.......

In the 70s a bandmate turned me on to Romantic Warrior. Of all the greatness on that album that changed my life, the one member of that band that captivated me into buying loads of his solo material was Stanley Clarke. ❤

I got all off these

BTW, I hope that you are feeling better by now Andy.

YES!! Still Warm!!! ❤❤❤

As per usual, an eclectic collection. What I think is missing from an 'essential' collection is an album from the dawn of jazz rock, either Blood Sweat and Tears ll or If ll. That was the start of top notch jazzers migrating to rock formats

Just listened to Space Boogie for the first time, My hands are shaking and I am out of breath, that was something else. I bang on my desk when listening to my prog but that was a 16 hand section at least. Thanks Andy for the push

Still warm is awesome.❤

Nice choice of Life and Times for Billy. I must give a shout out to 'Magic' as a cracking album as well. His next album as far as I recall was, Simplicity of Expression, which I never really cared for but thinking it was a one off (grab for commercial popularity) I purchased B.C but was disappointed again. That's when me and Billy Cobham parted company. As for the name of the Jan Hammer group, Billy said in an interview regarding the problems that beset M.O. 1: 'If I learned anything, it was to make sure your band is named after you'. Maybe Jan had the same idea. :)

John Scofield =BLUE MATTER & LOUD JAZZ !! !!***** *****

Laswell is also one of my favorites. Check out Tabla Beat Science or Praxis. Last Exist is also an amazing band. Same with power trio Massacre.

Thank you for introducing me to Jan Hammer’s “Don’t You Know.” It’s haunted me ever since I listened to it. Jan’s music has a way of doing this to me, as its effect is not unlike “Escape” off of Jeff Beck’s ‘80s LP Flash. “Escape” is Jan’s only contribution but it’s the standout for me, even more than “People Get Ready.”

I had that Stanley Clarke back in the Seventies. Then i discovered the joy of sock classification

I love the memory serves album, but somehow I didn't know about the Bill Laswell basslines album.. somewhere along the line I missed it when I was younger .. I'm going to have to check that out for sure because I always enjoyed Material .. I really like Bill Laswell .. sorry to hear he has health issues.

Lopsy Lu I must have played that song hundreds of times over the years, it has something in the feel of it. I wonder if Freeway Jam was inspired by this track.

I know I sound like an idiot saying this, but can you please make a video explaining exactly what the difference is between JAZZ ROCK and FUSION.

Don't You Know is just absolutely timeless. Everytime I hear it I cannot believe it exists AND came out in 77.

Love the shoutout to the great Doug Rauch! He was indeed a pioneer, cool dresser and had a unique sound. His playing on Music's first album (1970) with Doug Rodrigues, Buzzy Linhart and John Siomos is brilliant fingerstyle rock playing and just about only a year later he was in San Francisco doing the 16th note double thumb funk. He did a tour with Bowie in the fall '74 and is on "Cracked Actor" album and documentary. He died in 1979 actually, a huge loss.

Small note on the first version of the Jan Hammer Group (still with Jerry Goodman): Dough Rauch was the bassist withTony Smith already on drums.

I think you knocked it out of the park again Andy most of those albums I don't have except of course Jeff Beck my own everything he's got up to get to our shop and I bought them as they were released so they're all first pressings he is extremely my go to Jazz rock guitarist and as far as Jan Hammer I'm ashamed to say I don't own any solo albums by them what I do have is him playing with Jeff Beck band Al Di Meola bloody brilliant as you all say on the other side of the pond thanks again and I am definitely going to be keeping my eyes open for more of these albums hope you get the feeling better and I was a little shocked that you all eat pizza over there I thought that's why I was Americans are fat

Get well Andy!!

Ah....at last....Tale Spining!!! Big City....superb!!! My favourite later day Miles....We Want Miles.... plus Still Warm, Life and Times, Road Games, There and Back.....so many of my personal favourites.... BTW as well as working with Brian Auger, Alex Ligertwood sang and played guitar with Santana for many years..... Love the Geoff Love in the background....I love his Western Themes album tho....😂 Get well soon....keep taking the tablets!!!

I'm partial to Sonny Sharrock's SEIZE THE RAINBOW. I also dig Strange Meeting by Power Tools, Livestock by Brand X and David Torn's Cloud About Mercury.

My first Miles Davis album was Decoy, strange to say. It was probably newly released when I bought it. But it's a damn fine album, with The Munch on bass, back when he played in decent bands. Especially on the first track on side B.

The Eyewitness early albums are a must...all 3 LPs are framed on my wall. IIRC, not a Japanese-only release. BLADES is US, MODERN TIMES is the import. ROADGAMES, another killer. "Water On The Brain"???? Insane.

Thanks for playing hurt. Like Weather Report, vitamin C always delivers. 😎 Get well soon. JT

Tailspinning is my fav WR record! I listen to it more than any other by them. B/w the thighs is totally burning just as you said! (Burning thighs…😉)

If Andy is looking for title for his next non-Americana album he should consider 'Pizza Interjection'. Pizza is nearly always popular; slightly comedic too , and "interjection" would give an air firmness with a hint of mystery.

yes,there and back is the end of a trilogy,not as strong as the 2 before it,but still a bloody great album

Even as a guitar player I had all of Cobhams albums,I didn't just have all of Zappa's albums and guitar players,I had all different artists who played instruments other than guitar,I had Clark's and White's Venusian Summer

To viewers outside of the UK, a packet of prawn and cocktail crisps is traditional medicine in the Midlands of England.

1970’s “Dreams” is fantastic. ✌️

Andy…I thought I was the only person who thought Paul Jackson is best jazz/funk bass player ever??!! Great to hear someone else say that!

Andy, I recall quite well the publicity for Eddie Van Halen to produce his hero Allan Holdsworth’s new album Road Games in 1983. Warner Brothers were on board and the studio was booked and everything was a go until Eddie and Valerie Bertinelli decided to get married and go on their honeymoon leaving all those guys in the lurch. Don Landee was the only person who could get it recorded and they decided to make it a mini-album aka EP. It’s still great but Allan was devastated when he found out EVH wasn’t coming and then Allan signed with Enigma for Metal Fatigue (1985)

The Universe is a strange place......so when I was a kid I had the Geoff Love - Big War Movie Themes LP (behind Andy next to the red guitar on the wall)......but in the process of moving country I lost that album somehow and I hadn't seen or heard it for over 40 years now..... and absolutely out of the blue I searched for it yesterday on RU-vid and gave it a listen.........and here I am today looking at things to watch (never seen Andy's channel before) and there's the Big War Movie Themes LP...........nice little glitch in the Matrix.......or my own Truman Show.

If not done already, it will be nice to hear about Latin jazz and Latin jazz fusion, bands such as Irakere, Gato Barbieri, Caldera, Santana, Ray Barreto, Tito Puente, etc. 👍

This is a good run down Andy - not the ones you've talked about a trillion times before (you need to keep a list 😀) - only jesting my friend.

That Jan Hammer Group album sounds amazing on a half decent hi-fi, it really is a superb recording.

Andy, what is your take on some of the Ginger Baker projects--Airforce, PiL, the jazz quartet he was part of in NYC in the 90s, the famous Nigerian musician he recorded with in the early 70s, etc. I have seen the film, Beware Mr. Baker" and he hated "putting music in a f***ing box" with labels ("fusion" "jazz rock", etc.), but could you put some of those projects in boxes for us (me)?

How about a video with the top 10 songs with odd rhythm?

btw - Dave Greenslade - Colosseum !! A FAV HERE !

“Just got up and had a packet of prawn cocktail crisps “ 😂 great line

Perfect youtube short from 13:05.

I certainly didn't click on this video expecting to hear an Allan Holdsworth album described as pizza-esque

thank you for the list. For the sake of curiosity may you explain the difference if any between jazz rock and fusion? I had a debate with my old friend. He's also fan of jazz rock. He pointed out that these terms relate to different periods of evolution of jazz. Smth like early 70s is jazz rock, late 70s is fusion, then smooth jazz. I always thought both terms mean the same. Perhaps they came from different regions simultaneously (US vs UK?)

Sir, slightly creepy entrance 😂👍🏻

Im still waiting for the ten best porn soundtracks from the 70s

Alex Ligertwood was the vocalist with the Santana Band for more than 1 decade.