What was/if any, the 1st "Fusion" recording you bought?

[P. Aaron]

Mine was "School Days" by Stanley clarke. When it came out. It was actually heavily rotated on the radio! After that I immediately dove into Return to Forever and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Also subject to pretty intense radio rotation! (those were the days)

"Heavy Weather" was over the top. And at the time, I dug it for the music, and then the drums!

That bass player really had it going too!

[Wrong Robot]

Bitches brew - miles davis

or Heavy Weather...in fact I might have gotten them both on the same day, I can't remember.

[JimK]

Stanley Clarke's 2nd album(the one with "Lopsy Lu").
Bought it at the Navy Exchange at NOB in '75; believe it or not, they had a pretty decent Jazz section back then.

[jerry]

Bitches Brew for me too!......it just spidered out from there, and led me to Mahavishnu, Return To Forever etc. A very exciting time for me discovering new music

[Bassin']

In high school I played in the jazz band and we did a version of "Birdland". It was actually more like the Maynard Ferguson version than the Weather Report one but I couldn’t see myself buying a Maynard Ferguson recording. I actually bought a double tape version- it had Heavy Weather on one side and Black Market on the other. I bought Stanley Clarke’s "School Days" shortly after that.

[lbanks]

Sweetnighter by Weather Report

[lbanks]

Originally posted by SMASH
...since some Weather Report albums (to name one) almost induce me into a coma.

I was going to argue about that, but I realized there are sections on many WR albums, when everything does get vague and not quite well remembered...

[lbanks]

Originally posted by SMASH


Yeah, I meant no slag. Just that they're oft-cited but not necessarily a band that would pique the interest of some people. Personally I prefer a high octane content in my fusion. Kinda like you might dig Black Magus and not Sketches of Spain (I love both) but if you first heard the latter you might get a wildly different idea of what Miles is all about.

Oh Yeah! I heard that! In one of my more ego-driven(and better) past bands, we spent a month learning to play 'Harlequin', and we had that sucker down pat! Finally, a chance came to play it in public and we played it well! Our egos inflated to new levels of madness and followed it with a re-arrangement of 'Maiden Voyage' and about 5 originals, written in a number of obscure keys and time sigs. Finished our set and went to get our hosanas. The only thing we heard was "What was that sad tune? You guys need to kick-out the jams, dude." So, we went on stage and played 'Sex Machine' for the next half hour.( They never stopped dancing) Needless to say , that band broke within a week of the gig.

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" for me, although I really don't enjoy listening to much of it besides the basslines.

[Wrong Robot]

Originally posted by Bryan R. Tyler
Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" for me, although I really don't enjoy listening to much of it besides the basslines.

really?

Probably my favorite track on that album is "the juggler" it's not very bass heavy either.

although "havona" does rule...but it is pretty bass driven.

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Really. I just never got into fusion, try as I might. I got Heavy Weather, Bitches Brew, and a couple other fusion albums around the same time, as well as listening to a bunch of Jeff Beck stuff, and there's just not much for me to grasp on to. For some reason, the majority of fusion sounds too, well, cheesy to me. Almost like bad background music from the seventies. It's like the albums that are considered classic fusion either don't have the deepness of jazz or enough rock-oriented movements to be considered at all "rock" to my ears. I don't like when it's so much on the fence that you can't assign a mood to it; it's too much about 'thought out' music at that point, which is my major distate with a lot of fusion and some prog rock.

[Wrong Robot]

yeah I hear you there...I just never got that vibe from heavy weather

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Originally posted by Wrong Robot


really?

Probably my favorite track on that album is "the juggler" it's not very bass heavy either.

although "havona" does rule...but it is pretty bass driven.

The thing I like most about the album is the very fretless-y Jaco solos, like in "A Remark You Made" and "Havona." I recently got "Word of Mouth," and it's a totally different approach that Jaco takes. It's more of a composition album; moreso about the sum of all the parts than the parts themselves, as his self-titled solo album was. It's still good, but not where I think he shines best as a soloist. I think his Weather Report solos seem the most sincere and took the most advantage of his fretless playing-when he could step out of his sideman position and show his stuff.

[DaveBeny]

'Heavy Weather' was the first "jazz" record I bought, because I'd read some good things about Jaco and thought I ought to check him out. It took a couple of listens to get into, and then I listened to it every night for about a year.

More Jaco followed, then RTF's 'Romantic Warrior' (was the first disc with Stanley Clarke on that I could get hold of).

Miles's stuff followed when I did some research and found that Mahavishnu/WR/RTF were founded by Miles alumni. 'Bitches Brew' was my first MD disc (which almost put me off him completely! ), but I stuck with it, and 'Agharta' was a mindblower (yes, yes, I know I go on about it all the time! )

In fact, I've just got back from a trainee barrister's weekend in London - had to prepare a 3-min speech on a "subject that inspires you" - I decided to talk about Miles's music. I must have been quite enthusiastic - quite a few people were asking "how do you spell Agharta? I can imagine their reactions when they hear it! I think I should have recommended 'Kind of Blue' (less of a shock to the system)

[Brad Johnson]

Weather Report's "Mysterious Traveller", almost 30 years ago.

[Da_Niet]

Jeff Beck's, "Wired". I bought it over 10 years ago after I heard so much about his playing. I liked it, but, it wasn't what I was looking for at the time. I wanted to hear psychadelic, eastern-sounding Yardbirds solos over droned bass and pulsing drums, in what were then called, "freak-outs". That's not what was on "Wired". Lol. The music on the latter was well thought out, rehearsed, and flawlessly produced by none other than George "Beatles" Martin. A great record, "Wired" is and one that I put on often, along with all the Weather Report, Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters, RTF, MO, etc.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally posted by Brad Johnson
Weather Report's "Mysterious Traveller", almost 30 years ago.

That was one of my first albums as well - I was into Jazz rock - like Soft Machine 3 (from about 1972/73)and I remember reading a review in the NME (UK music paper) which raved about this and I loved it - then bought 'I sing the body electric', which totally bemused me and I almost never played it.

About the same time I got Mahavishnu "Between Nothingness and Eternity" live album and was amazed at this! The time scales are a bit hazy - but I also got Billy Cobham's Stratus and this was probably my most-played album for ages!!

One of my favourite fusion albums was "Like Children" made just after the demise of Mahavishnu by Jerry Goodman and Jan Hammer - I played this so much! But I lost my vinyl version and haven't been able to find a CD!!

[Treena Foster]

Chick Corea & Return to Forever [1972] and Bitches Brew
Miles Davis [1969] great albums.

One of my favourite fusion albums was "Like Children" made just after the demise of Mahavishnu by Jerry Goodman and Jan Hammer - I played this so much! But I lost my vinyl version and haven't been able to find a CD!!

Bruce I can burn you a copy if you like!

Treena

[XavierG]

Man, you guys have good memory! I can't remember that far back (I can't even remember what I did yesterday... but that's a whole other problem). I'm not sure which came 1st, but it was probably a toss-up between Return to Forever - Mahavishnu Orch. - Miles D. - Weather Report - Billy Cobham (or did he come later?) . I don't know for sure, but it was all good.

[P. Aaron]

Some posts here have also reminded me of a song by Stanley Clark called "Hello Jeff" with some pretty hellish co-ordinated playing between Clarke and Beck. Is that on "Journey to Love"?