THE PERFECT TEN | 10 essential jazz rock fusion albums 

I think there is a huge secret fanbase for Visions. I think the dislike comes from the keepers of the flame that want to protect the legacy of the first line-up. The first MO is incredible but so is the Ponty line-up and they struck gold with Visions...

Visions is my most played album by far. I’ve owned every format so I would have it available. I can’t help myself when I want to hear something burning, something glorious. Visions fills that need more than any record I own.

Thank you Tadpole....I feel I must listen to this now: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-snoPh3_ZQ2M.html

I could not pick between Enigmatic Ocean and his other late seventies albums. In terms of sound, Cosmic Messenger really defines that Ponty take on fusion...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I think you have a pretty solid take in that Ponty's work from that period should be looked at as one amazing piece, his later work while lacking the power and intensity is still pretty solid,

is that the one where he is holding his sticks under his chin ? ( B&W) ?

Report back on your findings

Some stuff I don't know there!

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer had to add that John Lee/Gerry Brown LP I heard as a 20 year old... Gary Bartz on sax... amazing album... I heard a lot of these before I heard anything else... just random stuff I came across in the cat shelter sometimes :D

​@@neilloughran4437cat shelter?

No thanks…!

If I may make a suggestion give Jon Luc Ponty Cosmic messenger a try😮 songs like egocentric molecules and puppets dance make this particular album off the chain😮 also deodato Rhapsody in Blue😊 these even received airplane on a aor FM stations in the early seventies😮 I know Billy Cobham is the drummer on that Jean-Luc Ponty album but unfortunately I forgot who plays drums on deodato😢 both albums had Maestro musicians on them😊

@@edljnehan2811 I do have Cosmic Messenger, but not the Deodato, thanks for the suggestion.

@@Darrylizer1 I recommend it highly also if you would like one more try Steve Morse high tension wires. I think most of these you can Google to try them out on RU-vid which you will want to do after you hear them

@@edljnehan2811 I have "Cosmic Messenger", and "Aurora", but the first Ponty album I bought was "Imaginary Voyage", so that's the one that stands out to me. All three are great, though.

@@VikingPadre agreed

That track is an incredible track...so glad you pointed this out. I should have mentioned it

Yed with roy haynes

But I am watching the analytics and it is steadily growing. I started doing these last May so it is not even a year. Thanks to those of you who do I am starting to get some traction and the fact that Narada Michael Walden is a fan and is telling all sorts of people about os a testament to what we have achieved here. And I say we because it is the fact that there are really receptive and intelligent music fans out there that this channel can exist ast all!

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer thanks again. It is brilliant and extremely interesting your topics are. I will certainly share your channel to people who look to elevate through music

Many of those have been dealt with elsewhere on my channel

​@@AndyEdwardsDrummerwould you think I was weird if I suggested the music soundtrack for the early 1960s classic Jonny Quest cartoons😅 I know this may sound like a strange suggestion but I'm serious that is some dynamic Jazz Rock Fusion played by some of the best Maestro musician in the world she asked for that action adventure animated kids show😮 every one of those guys are virtuoso's and you realized it especially when you're just listening to it and your full attention is on nothing but the music. I watch the show on RU-vid about it and every one of those guys our dynamic highly acclaimed musical virtuoso's😮 I mean it jams from beginning to end with some of the best jazz Rock Fusion I've ever heard😮 something I would assume a lot of people don't even think about it when they're watching the cartoon which by the way if you haven't seen it was a pretty legendary adult cartoon for the time. If you've never heard it I would highly encourage it and it is available on RU-vid if you just Google the soundtrack for Jonny Quest the classic years only which I think was 1963 1964 pretty much around there I was like eight years old at the time😊 thanks

Have you got the Cellar Door box set?

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Yes, I love Miles. I like the cd's without John Mclaughlin as much as the couple with him in that set. 👌

@@AndyEdwardsDrummerI love your channel unfortunately, financially I can't be a patron. I got into fusion through prog. Years ago when I was about 12, in my 60s now. I got into prog artists, Jethro Tull's Aqualung was the first album I brought. That led me to plenty of great music. I loved the Canterbury stuff, which led me to Hatfield and the North and Gong. I love Hatfield but just missed out seeing them live but brought National Health album on day of release. Then to Brand X, Bruford then Mahavishnu, Weather Report and the genius of Frank Zappa then Miles Davis. However, from there I listened to David Torn which in turn led to the ECM label. I got into that stuff more and more as personally coming from progressive stuff, I found it more interesting than fusion. Which by then seemed to become like prog rock did, a style that bands kept to, no or little development and the true meaning of progressive got lost. More ECM albums would be great to see. Also, an album I love, I personally would like to hear what you think by reviewing, to me the ultimate fusion album, not jazz rock but still a fusion. Peter Gabriel's Passion.

Correction "VENUSIAN SUMMER" album ... as RTF's drummer Lenny was a favourite round the studio

Great list, love every last one of them

@Ron Hall thanks, that's great to hear!

Gazeuse is one of my favourite albums ever made, it really is. It should be on my list but what do you take off? Coloseum I got me into fusion early on...essential. Brand X...check my video on John Goodsall. Now Passport...what I have heard I love but I need to know more. Interesting you put Cross Collateral as their best....

Hear hear for Gazeuse, and Brandx. Gazeuse was my introduction to jazz fusion and Holdsworth. While I could tell that it was virtuosic I didn't get it at first - a steep learning curve!. Pierre Moerlen was superb.

CTI label - Freddie Hubbard - Sky Dive !

Can’t find “Fuse One”, where is it

@@byronmcgee4118 hTTps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_One

There are a couple of vocal tunes but I love them. The rest is just sublime. Bambu Forest is the Mahavishnu sound done better than anything McLaughlin did after 1973. And I lve JM after 1973. After Visions of the Eerald Beyond, Oh Yeah? may be my favourite fusion album.

Will check out Larry Coryell!!!!

"School Days" would make my list.

What John McLaughlin did with Graham Bond in 1964 is arguably the beginning of fusion. Things We Like by Jack Bruce is a fully fledged fusion album in 1968. The British really pioneered this style. So Nucleus were really carrying on the tradition alongsdie Colosseum and Soft Machine. In the US it was Mike Nock, Jeremy Steig, Larry and Gary. I know that story about piling the instruments but didn't know it was supporting The Who. Larry was a really incredible guitarist and a pioneer that never quite got the credit he was due.I might need to do a whole video on him at some point.

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Larry wrote a book which isn’t very long but he doesn’t hide his demons. Very worth while artist to explore along with the Soft Machine who also screwed around with fusion before they became Soft Machine. Which begs the question, was fusion a UK thing? Or was it happening as a natural progression everywhere? Graham Bond and Jack definitely early pioneers. There is a book I have called jazz rock fusion that tries to answer that question.

@@Avalonrick1 Yes...he credits Herbie Hancock for getting him cleaned up if I remember right?

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Elvin Jones and his wife . Elvin looked at him straight in the eye and told him to clean up. This was around 1981. He lived her in CT for a while. He lived here when he did the sessions with Miles Davis in 78. He gave Larry the tapes. Which have surfaced. If you ever want to do a discussion about Larry let me know. He also recorded with Tony Williams and members of Oregon some which came out on his Difference album in 78.

I really like all the albums you have mentioned but they do seem more in the prog category. I have a fusion top ten tunes coming up and my criteria was that it needed to be funky, brutal and the solos needed to fly. This is possibly the worst criteria to define fusion but it was useful...

Drove my parents mad with all those Bruford albums plus The Bruford Tapes bootleg. Became mildly obsessed with Holdsworth and eventually got to see him at Ronnie Scott’s where Gary Husband just battered his way through both sets killing any chance of hearing Allen properly which was hugely disappointing but will always love ‘Roadgames’ and ‘one of a Kind’

all of them are the greatest

And the amazing Charlie Morgan on drums

You're absolutely right on. Not only egocentric molecules but puppet dance as well😮 as a matter of fact that whole freaking album😅 also give deodato Rhapsody In Blue a listen😊

"School Days"! Yes!

@@VikingPadre yes definitely

It's my faourite album. I originally had the CBS single sleeve but I searched and got that on Columbia which suggests a US import

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer yes I have seen your review of it. I love that album too...so much deep music on it...

It’s currently available. I got one recently.

@Eeshan Banerjee Great to see someone appreciating Japanese fusion. Great recommendations. Are you a Kazumi Watanabe fan?

@Eeshan Banerjee If you were a Patreon we could work on a video to cover these bands. i only know Casiopea and I don't know them that well...

@@rohitl7636 I recently discovered Iceberg...the Spanish seventies fusion band.

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Thanks. Will check them out.

@Eeshan BanerjeeGreat! Check out Masaru Imada's "Andalusian Breeze" if you haven't. Are you on Instagram or Facebook bhai?

I'm going to do 'The Ten Nearly Essential Jazz Rock Fusion Albums' at some point. At the moment I'm pulling together a video which 'Funky, Brutal and Flying: Twenty essential jazz fusion tunes.

Infinity Machine by Passport was the one.

Good shout on Masques!

Everyone is naming Enigmatic Ocean...I'll have to kick of that second Mahavishnu album I suppose...but it's the jazz fusion GOAT IMO

@@70sbasslines72 Thanks ;o)

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Enigmatic Ocean is a masterpiece.The writing and the playing are STELLAR.

Why “Bundles”?? It’s a very good album, but in my opinion Compositions simply not as strong as other Soft Machine albums, it’s not their best let alone belonging on fusion lists, from my point of view

I would like to do that

Me too - after many listens I do appreciate it but it’s still not a favourite

It’s really about the process of the music of Bitches Brew, or shall I say what came out of the process later in the years following. See in the , In a SIlent Way and Bitches Brew sessions, Miles brought all these young musicians around the world and paired them together on different tunes. And out of those tunes from those sessions, major groups were formed. These groups didn’t exist before the sessions, they essentially were formed by fiat after or what came out through those sessions. So here goes: From those Bitches Brew Sessions (the mother): Zawinul & Shorter form Weather Report (offspring), Mclaughlin & Cobham form Mahavishnu Orchestra (offspring), Hancock and Maupin form Headhunters (offspring), Corea and Airto (and later Lenny White would join) Return to Forever (offspring). And you can make a case from the previous year's "In A Silent Way” album Tony Willaims, John Mclaughlin, Larry Young (who only played on Bitches Brew) formed Tony Williams Lifetime (offspring). This really is the initial “We are the World” moment in music by Miles Davis. If there is no Miles Davis that by fiat kind of orchestrated those sessions, then I don’t know where we would be musically. The album is mainly an improvisational experiment to kind of see what was possible in using different instrumentation. Miles also used Indian musicians on those sessions. It's not about tryin to find a classic tune on the album. It's about those musicians meeting each other physically and musically on those sessions and then taking those relationships into a musical marriage to (form their own groups) in which they would display their own strengths in the musical world or fusion. Miles is the gift that keeps giving.

...exactly...check out my top ten fusion tunes videos next :)

(the best album ever)

Yes it is pretty stunning. I am not a fan of violin or violinists (I,ve worked with too many of them) but Ponty is simply incredible on this album.

And interestingly I see now when I check you channel that I virtually covered every artist that you’ve been addressing (on drums). Our taste is very close 👍🏻🤩

I mean check out this playlist, it absolutely mirrors your channel 🤩😂 … not for certain that I did them all justice, nevertheless loved playing them. And like you I want to find ways of spreading the wonders of “70’s fusion” 🦍 ru-vid.com/group/PLgbNYrZECAo3bSopN2S6LpDQKcbdlMAZy

Checked it out and I love what you are doing. And I have subscribed too

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Thank you (and likewise). Was happily surprised when I found our content to be so similar. When you had stuff about “Like Children” and the “Jan Hammer Group” it was total bingo! 🤩✌🏻 In a possible future I will do cuts from “Sister Andrea”, “Blue Wind”, “Bambu Forrest”, “Birdland” & “Stepping Tones” 😅🤩

@@flowerlandofjohn Love "Like Children".

Really incredible player both as a leader and sideman. I have set up a Patreon with the idea of creating a community of fans and then when it comes to important musicians like Davis S they will be guests on here to talk me through their albums when my knowledge is less great. I know David S from a few of his solo albums, his incredible keyboard soloing on a handful of fusion classics, that mind blowing guitar solo on Journey To Love and of course his work with Sting. I now a bit about him but what a career. I don't know enough

Yes...so much fusion I miss too, we are all learning. i have done a huge video on Pat Metheny

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer Jan Garbarek brings to mind some great fusion from ECM, while you have done an ECM vid already, the diversity of ECM deserves another. If Ralph Towners "Solstice', John Abercrombie's "Night' and Gallery ( Dave Samuels, Paul McCandless) arent fusion, then I don't know what is.

Ratledge’s involvement on “Bundles” was sadly minimal. Not nearly as strong an album as “Third”.

Yeah, they had such brilliant records and so little press, much like Allan Holdsworth.

so do I...fusion's Tubular Bells'

recorded 1969, released 70. recorded 2 months after In a Silent Way.

Is it Automatic Man?

Got it! Lenny White Venusian Summer.Thanks

Wired, sorry about the typing error

nuclear burn !!

It's totally jazz rock...how could it be defines as not jazz rock?

I have mentioned that book in my Origins of Jazz Rock Fusion video. If I could locate them all, I would do a video on the best books to learn about the history of this form...

@@AndyEdwardsDrummer I have much catching up to do with your great Channel... :-) My college ('76-'80) used a book called JAZZ STYLES by Mark Gridley. Even then, there was a Chapter on Fusion. I enjoyed that book as a primer.

Oh Yeah is simply one of the greatest fusion albums ever. Name a fusion track better than Magical Dog?

Oh that’s an easy one. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat off of Wired. A true jazz standard written by a jazz icon, performed by a blues-rock giant with all the fire and passion that rock can bring. It’s jazz, it’s rock, and it is the perfect fusion of the two. The song you mention is indeed wonderful, but the album as a whole is a bit uneven. Wired (and Blow by Blow) has higher highs and is more consistent. I’d say that was just one guy’s opinion, but … come on … 👍😎

​@@jimibrown2043my man I could not agree with you more both of those albums are at the top of my list😮 and you're right goodbye pork pie hat is number one that is some of the most intense guitar playing I have ever heard😮 I cut my Fusion teeth on both of these albums😊 especially wired. I've been saying this for years. Thank you😊 do you know what's really weird or at least to me anyway totally unexpected. I read an interview with Jeff Beck who stated that he totally hated that particular era of music that he went through and wishes he would have stayed more with regular rock music and had not ventured into Fusion saying he regretted he ever did that😢 to me that was his best music and this statement just blew me away when I heard it😢

Wired is one of my favourite albums of all time mainly for Narada and Jan. If you like Narada on that then what about Visions of the Emerald Beyond? And if you like Jan then I have Oh Yeah? I'm about to do the runners up based upon the comments here though...