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Around the same time that Cool Jazz took hold on the West Coast, jazz musicians from Detroit, Philadelphia and New York began to embrace a heavier, hard-on-the-beat form of Bebop called Hard Bop. While it closely resembled traditional Bebop in its aggressiveness and technical demands, the Hard Bop of the 1950s and '60s relied less on standard song forms and placed more importance on blues elements and rhythmic drive. Soloing chops, or improvisatory skill, coupled with a strong grasp of harmony remained of primary importance to horn players; in the rhythm section, drums became more involved and piano and bass achieved a more fluid, funkier feel. In 1955, drummer Art Blakey and pianist Horace Silver formed the Jazz Messengers, the quintessential Hard Bop group. Most of jazz's great organists spent time on the Soul Jazz scene: Jimmy McGriff, Charles Earland, Groove Holmes, Les McCann, Donald Patterson, Jack McDuff and Johnny Hammond Smith all led groups in the '60s, often playing small rooms with at trio. Tenor saxophone was also prominent, adding a preacher-like voice to the mix; notables included Gene Ammons, Jimmy Smith, Eddie Harris, Stanley Turrentine, Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis and Houston Person.

Like Hard Bop, Soul Jazz stood in contrast to West Coast: The music evoked passion and a strong sense of community, rather than detachment and emotional coolness. People should be careful not to confuse Soul Jazz with what's now known as 'soul music'. While both share a gospel influence, Soul Jazz grew out of Bebop, and soul music traces directly back to popular R&B. Perhaps the most controversial movement in the history of jazz came with the advent of Free Jazz, or 'New Thing' as it was later to be called. While elements of free jazz existed within the structure of the music for many years it wasn't until the mid to late '50s that it emerged as a bona fide style, coming as it did from such pioneers as saxophonist Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil Taylor. What these two musicians and others such as John Coltrane, Albert Ayler and aggregates such as the Sun Ra Arkestra and a group called the Revolutionary Ensemble did amounted to a variety of changes in the structure and feel of the music. Among the innovations, when performed with imagination and great musicianship, was dispensing with chord progressions, allowing the music to go in any of a number of directions. Another primary change could be found with rhythm, where 'swing' was either redefined or ignored altogether.


In other words, pulse, meter and groove were not an essential element anymore. Another key ingredient was atonality, where musical pitch was no longer relegated to the conventional tonal system. Shrieks, barks, split tones were all part of this new sonic world. Free jazz continues to emerge as a viable form of expression, and is actually less controversial. Artists such as saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Horace Silver, drummer Art Blakey and trumpeter Lee Morgan actually started this music during the mid '50s, and helped usher in what is now the predominant form of jazz. With simpler melodies and a more soulful beat, the listener could hear traces of gospel and R&B mixed in. To some extent, this style met with some refinement during the '60s as compositional elements were added to create new textures. Saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist McCoy Tyner made music that was both hummable and interesting harmonically. One of the most significant composers to emerge during this period was saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Shorter, who came up through the ranks with Blakey, recorded a string of strong albums under his own name during the 1960s. Along with keyboardist Herbie Hancock, Shorter helped Miles Davis' '60s quintet (a more experimental version of Davis' highly influential '50s post-bop group with John Coltrane) become one of the most significant groups in jazz history.

A music that had its origins not only in the pop and rock of the 1960s, but in the currents that flowed from such areas of jazz as soul, funk and rhythm & blues, Fusion as a musical genre emerged during the late '60s as jazz-rock. Artists and groups such as Larry Coryell's Eleventh House, Tony Williams' Lifetime and Miles Davis led the way, incorporating such elements as electronics, rock rhythms and extended tracks, nullifying much of what jazz 'stood' for since its inception, namely, a swing beat, primarily blues-based music whose repertoire included both blues material as well as pop standards. The term fusion was introduced shortly thereafter to include a variety of bands and individuals that came later, such as John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report and Chick Corea's Return To Forever . Throughout, the emphasis on improvisation and musicianship remained constant, linking it and its practitioners with the history of jazz, despite detractors claimed they had 'sold out' to commercial interests. In fact, these early experiments, when heard today, sound hardly commercial, challenging the listener to engage in what was music of a highly interactive and developed nature.

As a musical form, jazz musicians reclaimed it as a means to express themselves with authenticity during the '80s. Such artists as drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, guitarists Pat Metheny, John Scofield, John Abercrombie and James 'Blood' Ulmer as well as veteran saxophonist/trumpeter Ornette Coleman creatively took this music in different directions. The musical incorporation of Latin rhythmic elements in jazz has been around almost from its beginnings with the cultural intermingling in New Orleans. Jelly Roll Morton spoke of a 'Spanish tinge' in his recorded music of the mid to late '20s. Working with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in Calloway's band of the late '30s, Mario Bauza brought in an influence that clearly led to Gillespie's big bands of the mid '40s, as well as a continuing love affair with Latin musical forms for the remainder of Gillespie's long career. The musical melting pot of Latin jazz has spread further in the '80s and '90s to include not only bands and combos with first-rate improvisers of Latin American heritage but also a blending of domestic and Latin players creating some of the most exciting music on the scene.


Today's music world is as diverse as the climates and geography we experience. And yet, more and more of the world's cultures are intermingling, to the point that, as with 'world music' today's jazz cannot help but be influenced by sounds from around the globe. European experimentalism, with classical overtones, continues to influence the music of young pioneers Evan Parker and Peter Brotzmann. Other, more traditional young musicians that continue to forge their own identities include pianists Jacky Terrasson, Benny Green and Brad Mehldau, saxophonists Joshua Redman and David Sanchez, and drummers like Marvin 'Smitty' Smith, Jeff 'Tain' Watts and Billy Stewart. The age-old tradition of mentoring continues apace with artists like trumpeter Wynton Marsalis bringing along a whole crew of acolytes for his own small groups as well as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which he heads up. Bassist Dave Holland has also been a fine recruiter and nurturer of young talent over the years, employing, among many others, saxophonist/M-Base artist Steve Coleman, vibist Steve Nelson and drummer Billy Kilson. Other great mentors of young talent have included drummer Elvin Jones and the late singer Betty Carter.

As jazz moves into the future, the potential for creativity is great, as talent is expressed and nurtured along disparate lines, and as collaborative efforts between jazz genres is encouraged. Jazz's Young Lions of the '80s were more of a marketing tool than an actual movement, yet it produced some of the best musicians on today's jazz scene and was an economic force that for a while benefitted the overall financial health of the music. Essentially, it was a group of primarily college-trained musicians with musical foundations set in classic bebop and hard bop styles, and when they burst on the scene they were expected to save the jazz tradition into the new century. In many ways, the real story of the Young Lions can't be told yet. While they remain among the stars of the current scene, they are not yet considered to be among the all-time jazz greats since they have shed their Young Lions fur. Only their creative strivings toward individuality will determine that. The emergence of experimentalism and the avant-garde in jazz overlaps somewhat with the onset of free jazz. Always an element within jazz's vanguard, the notions of change and innovation have always been 'experimental'.

What this new form of experimentalism offered jazz in the '50s, '60s and '70s was a more radical departure from convention, fusing new elements of rhythms, tonality and structure. In fact, avant-garde music became synonymous with open-ended forms that were less easily characterized than even free jazz. Preplanned structure mixed with more 'out' soloing, reminiscent of free jazz. Compositional styles merged with improvisation in a way that made it difficult to determine where one led off and the other began. In fact, the structure of the music in general was designed to have solos be an outgrowth of arrangements, lending coherence to what might normally be construed as a form of abstraction or even chaos. Swing rhythms, even melodies could be incorporated, but no as a rule necessarily. Early pioneers might include pianist Lennie Tristano, saxophonist Jimmy Giuffre and composer/arranger/conductor Gunther Schuller. Later practitioners included pianists Paul Bley and Andrew Hill, saxophonists Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers, drummers Sunny Murray and Andrew Cyrille and members of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

With New York City's big-name jazz clubs presenting mostly established players and groups, the smaller musical venues in the city's Lower Manhattan region have taken the lead in offering younger, lesser-known and more forward-looking musicians a way to find an audience. Although other clubs have played a role in this mostly quiet revolution, Smalls has made its reputation as a spot with a more mainstream jazz orientation, while the Knitting Factory caters to a cutting-edge crowd in both jazz and rock veins. A more edgy, experimental, often free-form quality is found in the mixture of music found at the Knitting Factory. Opened in 1994, Smalls became the mecca for combos and big bands with a revolving cast of players, as well as a place for all-night jamming. It also has become a hangout for record producers seeking new artists, as well as a place for live recordings. Jazz has always had an interest in the world beyond its borders. Consider the early work of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and his cross-fertilizing with Afro-Cuban music of the 1940s, as well as composer/bandleader Duke Ellington's far-reaching suites of music from Africa, Latin America and the Far East. Jazz continued to incorporate non-Western musical traditions when other artists started using the musical elements of India or when the 'world music' groups Oregon, whose musics are primarily jazz-based, incorporated tablas, intricate rhythms and raga forms. The Art Ensemble of Chicago was an early pioneer in merging African and jazz forms. Later developments included such artists as saxophonist/composer John Zorn's explorations of Jewish culture with his band Masada and beyond, inspiring a whole other group of jazz musicians such as keyboardist John Medeski and guitarist Mark Ribot. Trumpeter Dave Douglas was inspired to incorporate Balkan influences, while the Asian-American Jazz Orchestra emerged as a leading proponent of the convergence of jazz and Asian musical forms. As the world continued to shrink, globally, the impact of other musical traditions was felt in jazz, providing ripe fodder for future explorations, proving that jazz is, indeed, a world music.
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