Wood Goblin wrote: Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:47 am Curious to see what everyone’s top five non-Miles fusion records would be.

I don’t have a top five. I just want to get educated.

In the interest of variety (no repeats) mine would be, no order:

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Inner Mounting Flame
Weather Report - I Sing the Body Electric
Tony Williams Lifetime - Emergency
Return to Forever - Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy
Herbie Hancock - Sextant

Good call on the Ornette above, tough.

Doesn't get mentioned as often as Dancing In Your Head, but Ornette's Body Meta is also great:

^ Yes!

Happy birthday, Ornette!

I guess if we're opening it up to post Ornette electric/fusion stuff (and why shouldn't we) then Don Cherry Brown Rice is a favorite as well.

Alfonia Tims & His Flying Tigers Future Funk - Uncut
Sonny Sharrock Ask The Ages
Carla Bley & Paul Haines Escalator Over The Hill
James Blood Ulmer Freelancing
Soft Machine Bundles
Grover Washington Jr Mister Magic

The Bley/Haines set features frequent & devastating contributions from a band comprising McLaughlin/Bruce/Bley/Motian with Don Cherry, and is just incredible otherwise. The Soft set is their one album with Allan Holdsworth and is a rare and vibrant chance to hear him outside his own usually-too-alien-for-me musical world. The Grover set (all his 70s albums are v. v. good) has lush and poisonous Bob James arrangements throughout, and "Earth Tones" is a blazing sunrise of a song.

Escalator Over the Hill is an all-time favorite.
Linda Ronstadt!

penningtron wrote: Thu Mar 09, 2023 11:39 am I guess if we're opening it up to post Ornette electric/fusion stuff (and why shouldn't we) then Don Cherry Brown Rice is a favorite as well.

Super record. I'm not sure if it qualifies as fusion exactly, but it's great.

Dancing in Your Head, Body Meta, Of Human Feelings, Song X...it's electric, but maybe not fusion exactly since, I dunno, it's not transparently rock or funk-inflected...it's just Ornette. Like, that's all it sounds like.

In All Languages nailed home how singular his voice and his ear were. Quartet, Prime Time...as well as the trio, duet, larger group stuff he did earlier...didn't matter, it all just sounded like him. Instantly recognizable.

Sun Ra similar but Lanquidity definitely qualifies as fusion.

I think the thing that bugs me about some fusion (really, most of it, by volume) is that it's trying to be a more impressive and sophisticated version of rock music. Rock music doesn't need that.

eephus wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:36 pm I think the thing that bugs me about some fusion (really, most of it, by volume) is that it's trying to be a more impressive and sophisticated version of rock music. Rock music doesn't need that.

Yeah, and like a lot of prog rock that 'sophistication' is mostly a facade of flashy solos over conventional 4 of this, 4 of that songwriting. The early electric Miles stuff obliterated previous templates, from instrumentation to song structures to studio techniques. But I guess those nebulous periods never last long before someone comes along and packages it as pop music.

Herbie is king.

Tony WIlliams...maybe because I have a weird, almost traditionalist bent when it comes to jazz and I find his drumming, even at its most experimental and over the top, as the link to previous eras that I prefer.
Also, I think Williams, because of his age and personality, had a better discernment of what was vital and interesting in rock music.
It's no surpise he is the hero of people like Brendan Canty.