"Serious" Fusion in 80's-90's / Drummer Wars

[Rooster_Ties]

Before I totally got the STING thread totally derailed, I thought I'd better start a new topic. This isn't very focussed to start with, cuz I just did a cut-n-paste from my post in the Sting thread.

==================

I remember many years ago (early 90's) -- long before my BNBB days even -- that there was quite a difference of opinion about the value, worth, and talent of another of Sting's drummers, one Vinnie Colaiuta.

I remember back on BITNET (anybody remember BITNET???) and on the old "ALLMUSIC" e-mail distribution list, that there were several people who thought Vinnie was THE best drummer in the entire world... ...and several people that thought he was pure evil incarnate - along with being a horrible drummer. (For days and days, e-mails would be "Vinnie" this, and "Vinnie" that!!!)

• I always thought it totally depended what kind of date he was on, but no matter what - he always seemed like a consummate "studio" drummer, and all THAT implies - for both good, and evil . (How's that for my Sangry impression?? )
  

And man, now I'm having flashbacks of flame-wars back then over Dave Weckl too. And Neil Peart too. Back then, ALL that conversation totally went over my head, but I guess the names stuck in my cranium.

Man, there was one other drummer especially, who always came up in those conversations/flame-wars. Shit, I cannot remember his name (another drummer) - but I remember getting a CD by him (one of his few as a leader), and I remember the cover was mostly all a sort of off-yellow cover, on a weird label I'd never seen before, otherwise. The line-up was probably drums, bass (electric), "keys" (probably the only appropriate use of that term "keys" ), and el-guitar. I wanna say it was lead by somebody (the drummer I can't think of) who played with Sting at one time, or somebody else on the disc played with Sting (not a drummer).

Obviously a fusion date of some kind, circa 1990-1993, and I'm guessing more in that 1991-92 range. I remember it, because I think it was THE very first CD I ever obtained from somebody on-line, because I couldn't find it anywhere else, since it was on a smaller label. Maybe somebody who played with Chick, maybe?? This is gonna drive me up a wall!!!

=============================

Found it!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No "Sting" connection with Chad Wackerman that I can see, but his name came up all the time in those same ALLMUSIC circles. Must have been a bunch of Zappa nuts.

Have I derailed this thread enough yet?? I can do more, if needed.

Edited July 27, 2004 by Rooster_Ties

[couw]

Have I derailed this thread enough yet?? I can do more, if needed.

I'm preserving this for posterity. This must be the first time someone IN THE VERY FIRST POST OF A THREAD HE STARTED HIMSELF, ask whether he has taken it off-topic. Only on this board and only with Rooster Ties!

[Rooster_Ties]

I'm preserving this for posterity. This must be the first time someone IN THE VERY FIRST POST OF A THREAD HE STARTED HIMSELF, ask whether he has taken it off-topic. Only on this board and only with Rooster Ties!    

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!

And shit, I can't even got back and edit out it now!!!!

Anyway, here are sound samples from that Chad Wackerman CD that was buggin' me!!!! B&N Link Not really excited by the music itself, particularly (OK, maybe a tiny bit), but more just my memory of having dug this at one time, and recognizing the tunes years later.

Edited December 11, 2003 by Rooster_Ties

[JSngry]

It all went downhill after Steve Gadd, just as it all went downhill after New Coke...

[Joe G]

So what is our topic, exactly?

[couw]

So what is our topic, exactly?

and here was I thinking my dyslexia had got the better of me again....

[Rooster_Ties]

I just listened to all the samples from the Wackerman CD (see link two or so posts above this one), and it's weird -- I can appreciate this music a little bit, but at the same time - it really leaves me pretty cold.

Yeah, Steve Gadd’s name came up back on that board a bunch too. Many pro, many con.

To me, these guys all seemed like they were incredibly talented, but that they were using their talent mostly for purposes of evil, rather than good. Not that I thought jazz was the only "good" way to play, but rather that there was something incredibly calculated about most of the playing by most of the drummers mentioned already in this thread. Calculated, and robot like. (And somehow, at least for the Zappa drummers already mentioned in this thread, it WORKED in that context (with Zappa), but it didn't do shit for me in other contexts.)

I haven't listened to very much of this kind of music in years, and I only dabbled with it even back then.

I just remember there being a whole bunch of people who were all into "serious fusion music" back when I was in college, circa 1987-1993 (and before you do the math, I got two bachelors degrees during that time, and I graduated on-time with the first one, in exactly 4-years, so back off!!! )

Is there any "serious fusion" from the 80’s and 90’s, that anybody here really thinks is pretty amazing stuff – even in retrospect?? Amazing in terms of technique, perhaps – but does the music still speak to you?? Has it aged gracefully?? Or has any of it “stood the test of time” very well???

(How’s that for getting the topic better defined, Joe.)

Edit: I don't mean to focus only on the drummers, but rather the whole genre of "serious fusion" in the late 80's and 90's. But obviously the drums were a big part.

Edited December 11, 2003 by Rooster_Ties

[Rooster_Ties]

Anybody remember "Tribal Tech" with Scott Henderson?? I never got that band, at all - but I remember there being a rabid crowd at a local jazz bar here in Kansas City (shortly after I moved here, so in about 1995) - FYI, that jazz-bar also booked "jazz-related" acts ("Fusion", "Smooth", "Soul Jazz" etc...). Man, "Tribal Tech" brought some serious fans out of the woodwork, and they all seemed to be closet musicians too - from the look of the crowd (I know, how do closet musicians look?? - I can't explain, it was just an impression I got from reading the room.)

I could never understand the admiration for the "serious fusion" musicians (by amateur musicians), who focused all of their devotion to those with these (supposedly) mad technical skills -- but who often created some of the most "lifeless" music I've ever heard. Not all of it was totally lifeless, but it seemed the more devotion a cat garnered from other amateur musicians interested in "serious fusion", the less they spoke to me.

In other words, the more fanatical a few of my friends were about somebody, the less likely I was to find anything meaningful in their music. Or so I remember, at least.

PS: I was at that Tribal Tech show, cuz I helped out at the jazz bar. Didn't ever get paid for it, but I could drink all I wanted (within reason) any night of the week, and I got into any show I wanted for free. That, in exchange for collecting the 'cover' at the doora couple nights a week, and helping out behind the bar during shows (especially the shows I wasn't interested in hearing all that much, Norman Brown, and such...)

Edited December 11, 2003 by Rooster_Ties

[couw]

Anybody remember "Tribal Tech" with Scott Henderson??

now we're getting somewhere! A couple of years ago I found a copy of a TTech disk in my racks. I believe I had picked it up years before on the instigation of some (indeed) amateur musician friends. I must have liked it then or why would I have bought it? Anyhow, I put this stuff on while doing a paint job (painting my racks actually) and YECH!!! OUCH!!! put that shite off!!!

[Rooster_Ties]

Miles Davis TUTU and AMANDLA

Material HALLUCINATION ENGINE

Wayne Shorter PHANTOM NAVIGATOR

are favorites from 1986 to mid-nineties

I like the Miles discs, but haven't heard the others.

Miles and Wayne both come from the jazz world. I'm more thinking about people who created 'pure' fusion, who DIDN'T come from the jazz world particularly. (If anything, my notion is that many of them came from the prog-rock or art-rock world.)

Don't know that particular Wayne album, and haven't a clue what "Material HALLUCINATION ENGINE" is, but will look it up shortly...

[JSngry]

Anybody remember "Tribal Tech" with Scott Henderson??

Gary Willis was from Pine Tree, about 10 miles from Gladewater, but I didn't meet him until I was home from college one year. We jammed for a cuppla summers and then he came to NT. I called him for a session, and the drummer wanted to play Horace's "You Gotta Take A Little Love", a boogaloo. Well, Gary got about 5 choruses into it, stopped playing, and screamed, "I can't play this fucking surf music anymore!" packed up and left. And that was that...

But hell, the guy went on to play with Wayne Shorter!

Edited December 11, 2003 by JSngry

[JSngry]

I kinda dug this one:

An M-Base (the REAL fusion of the 80s and beyond, imo) offshoot, but not so's you'd notice.

And Screaming Headless Torsos was a gas! "Blue In Green" as a metal ballad with Goth lyrics? Works for me! But only this once.

[Rooster_Ties]

M-Base --> the REAL fusion of the 80s and beyond...

Word!!

[Joe G]

Yeah, I was into Tribal Tech in the mid 90's; saw them live three times. One thing I noticed, the crowd was getting smaller each time. But you're right about the closet musician thing; that was definitely their crowd. With like one girl in the audience.

The second concert of the three was, for me, very exciting. I came away from that one feeling very encouraged to take my own music more seriously. I think that Scott and Gary wrote some good tunes, and they are great players, and not just technically. Do I listen to them anymore? Well, no. I don't think it's evil; I've simply moved on.

I'm trying to remember what else I was listening to at that time...

Scofield's fusion records are good, with Dennis Chambers on drums.

Also Ronald Shannon Jackson, especially Red Warrior.

Not exactly fusion, but Henry Threadgill's Too Much Sugar For A Dime is pretty hard rockin, with Gene Lake on drums (who also played with Screaming Headless Torsos).

Allan Holdsworth is amazing, but his songwriting isn't something that usually grabs me. His soloing has taken my breath away at times, and in small doses.

Edited December 11, 2003 by Joe G

[jazzypaul]

Fusion guitar players all leave me wanting to slit my wrists. Almost all of 'em. Al DiMeola, Scott Henderson, Alan Holdsworth, the whole bunch, except for Hiram Bullock when I'm in the mood.

Only tangentially a fusion guy, but a guy's whose music I've always dug: Wayne Horvitz. The Zony Mash albums are, as a whole, the most played CD's in my collection.

And, if you think about it, Jaco would have been one of those pure fusion guys. His albums with Dennard and Bullock were pretty damned good.

[rockefeller center]

And, if you think about it, Jaco would have been one of those pure fusion guys.

JP was an R&B/Jazz guy, period. In the 70ies: Las Olas Brass, Tommy Strand & The Upper Hand, Wayne Cochran & C.C. Riders, Ira Sullivan, Peter Graves Orchestra, Willie 'Little Beaver' Hale, Albert Mangelsdorff, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Mitchell, et cetera - where's the fusion here?

In the 80ies the short lived Word Of Mouth Big Band, the WOM Sextet and other incarnations of that band - again, what fusion?

Re pure fusion: those six years with Weather Report earned him the fusion reputation which is not even 50% of his brief career (granted his playing can be called "fusion bass playing," whatever that is, during his Weather Report period).

Edit: the discs with Dennard and Bullock weren't his albums - those are posthumously released live recordings (in most cases audience recordings). Sorry for nitpicking.

Edited December 12, 2003 by rockefeller center

[CJ Shearn]

Al Dimeola leaves me cold. His playing is just empty, although I think he is a very good acoustic player. His Metheny esque stuff in the 80's was an ego trip, after Pat came out with "First Circle", Al decided to do the Synclavier thing, and go for a similar sort of sound. Even the pseudo Roland GR300 trumpet sound on that tune "Traces of a Tear", the lone tune I really heard from "Soaring Through a Dream" really sucked. Al is such an arrogant ass too, saw this webcast interview with him where someone sent in a question about making a live album and he just replied "no. because historically, live albums don't sell" or something to that effect.

[Jazzdog]

No "Sting" connection with Chad Wackerman that I can see, but his name came up all the time in those same ALLMUSIC circles.  Must have been a bunch of Zappa nuts.

Chad Wackerman was the drummer in Zappa's ill-fated 1988 Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life and Sting came on at a show and sang Murder by Numbers with Zappa's band playing a blues a la Stolen Moments (indeed the song was wrapped around MBN).

So theres your connection, and I KNOW I am one of those Zappa nuts!!!

Edited December 12, 2003 by Jazzdog

[7/4]

Al Dimeola leaves me cold. His playing is just empty, although I think he is a very good acoustic player.

I have always felt that way.

[7/4]

Allan Holdsworth is amazing, but his songwriting isn't something that usually grabs me. His soloing has taken my breath away at times, and in small doses.

I was a big fan of Holdsworth in the '80's. I really burned out on him. He seemed kinda directionless in the '90's. 16 Men of Tain is real nice, more a jazz tone on his guitar, accoustic bass and trumpet playing Fowler on a couple of cuts. I'm not sure if there's any development in the compositional skills, but his soloing always changes from release to release.

His playing on IOU, Road Games, Atavachron, the two Bruford Group albums, UK and the more recent 16 Men of Tain and All Night Wrong knock me out.

As for other material: The first 2 or 3 Bill Bruford Earthworks albums, the 3 Bill Conners electric albums from the '80's, David Torn's Cloud About Mercury w/ Bruford & Levin, Terje Rypdal, Aura/Miles, Firemerchants, Glenn Alexander and Stretch, Tony Williams w/ Jan Hammer at the Bottom Line (no record, I wish I had a recording of that gig, this would be post Miami Vice )....when I'm in the mood for fusion which is kinda rare these days.

[Jazzdog]

I really want to hear the new live Holdsworth cd with Jimmy Johnson on bass and Chad Wackerman on drums.

I burned thru my copy of the first UK album back when I had a turntable, but I liked a few of his cd's from the early 90's. I don't have them anymore but I saw him in London with Gary Husband on drums, and I got to take home a broken drumstick. That was a smokin' gig.

The best part about that night was that I brought a pal of mine who had heard a lot about Holdsworth because Eddie Van Halen championed him a while back. The guy thought he was gonna hear some balls to the Wall Heavy Metal. Obviously he walked away from the gig a bit disapointed.

[7/4]

The best part about that night was that I brought a pal of mine who had heard a lot about Holdsworth because Eddie Van Halen championed him a while back. The guy thought he was gonna hear some balls to the Wall Heavy Metal. Obviously he walked away from the gig a bit disapointed.

I remember a show at the Bottom Line where I saw a couple of long haired metal heads (not that there's anything wrong with that) walking out during the first tune.

[7/4]

I could never understand the admiration for the "serious fusion" musicians (by amateur musicians), who focused all of their devotion to those with these (supposedly) mad technical skills -- but who often created some of the most "lifeless" music I've ever heard. Not all of it was totally lifeless, but it seemed the more devotion a cat garnered from other amateur musicians interested in "serious fusion", the less they spoke to me.

Because we wanted to be able to play like that!

Now a days, I'd rather play a few notes...a new one every 5 min., now there's a goal!

[Joe G]

As for other material: The first 2 or 3 Bill Bruford Earthworks albums, the 3 Bill Conners electric albums from the '80's, David Torn's Cloud About Mercury w/ Bruford & Levin, Terje Rypdal, Aura/Miles, Firemerchants, Glenn Alexander and Stretch, Tony Williams w/ Jan Hammer at the Bottom Line (no record, I wish I had a recording of that gig, this would be post Miami Vice )....when I'm in the mood for fusion which is kinda rare these days.

That's some good stuff. I still like those Earthworks albums. Bill Conners is good, but since he plays with a Holdsworth-like tone, I figured I might as well listen to Holdsworth. Used to have that Torn disc but sold it. Haven't heard the rest.

Ever heard that album that Frank Gambale did with Holdsworth called Truth in Shredding? Great song selection, horrible production. Allan really plays some nice solos, but I've never been a big fan of Gambale. Too L.A. sounding, even though he's Australian.

[7/4]

Bill Conners is good, but since he plays with a Holdsworth-like tone, I figured I might as well listen to Holdsworth.

But his solos aways remind me of early Clapton!

Ever heard that album that Frank Gambale did with Holdsworth called Truth in Shredding? Great song selection, horrible production. Allan really plays some nice solos, but I've never been a big fan of Gambale. Too L.A. sounding, even though he's Australian.

The 7:02 7/4:

I've got that album, I feel the same way about it! I think everyone else recorded their parts and then Holdsworth took it into his own studio to craft his solos.

The 7:48 7/4:

No, you "have" that album, you idiot.

The 7:02 7/4:

Hey &*#$ you twit!

The 7:48 7/4:

We're going to have to take this off line before reality folds.

The 7:02 7/4:

Eat me.

EDITED FOR GRAMMAR....

Edited December 14, 2003 by 7/4