Right-Off!
Welcome to the premiere online issue of Pulsar Sound. Pulsar Sound was created to focus on and promote jazz fusion and world music. Our goal is to become the preeminent online destination for those who love these genres.
I was 16 years old the very first time I heard fusion music. As fate would have it I saw the Mahavishnu Orchestra on late night TV. This event changed my life by introducing me to a new sphere of music and giving me the curiosity to study the music which led to its creation. For a couple of years I was in the cool crowd because fusion had become really popular. Then something terrible happened. Following is an excerpt from the book I wrote about the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Power, Passion and Beauty:
Capitalism Swallows Fusion
Capitalism can be a great thing, except when it dictates artistic taste. Truly pure art, produced without expectations of any kind, can only be found on prehistoric cave walls. But alas, artists need to eat lest they become part of that infamous community known as “starving artists.” Governments should offer far greater art subsidies in order to foster culture and understanding. But that is for another book.
Big music companies love three things. First, they love immediate returns. Nothing is so good that they have to wait, and patience is a sign of weakness. Second, they love “a sure thing,” so much so, that they will quickly clone the “sure thing” over and over, to the point that it will saturate the marketplace and bore everyone to death before the “sure thing” itself dies. The third thing that big music companies love is a result of the first two things. In order to obtain blanket product coverage, the marketing geniuses believe that they have to simplify everything. So, back in the ’70s they said, “Those Mahavishnu records are selling tons. Maybe if we signed some bands that played that type of music, but without all those sharp edges, we could increase our market share in this line of distribution. Perhaps we can also convince our current artists to lighten things up a bit. There are an awful lot of people out there that aren’t buying Mahavishnu.” You know the rest. This business mentality is just not about music. Once someone decided that pouring ketchup into hot water was the same thing as tomato soup and you could make a few more cents that way, many wonderful things, eventually including good fusion music, were doomed.
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So fusion became watered down and predictably people tired of it. Through the 1980s there was still some good fusion music to be found. You just had to send out a search party to find it. Promotion was all but absent. Huge fusion stars were now on little known record labels – if they could get a contract at all. But what people didn’t understand, and to a degree still don’t, is that fusion music by definition has increased in the world – not decreased. We have become so used to hearing fusion, the combining of musical cultures, sounds and genres, in popular music that we don’t even know that it is there. As far back as 3 decades ago pop musicians were incorporating fusion in their music and fans have been digging it since. Steely Dan, Christopher Cross, Sting, Santana and many others were first. Jan Hammer’s Miami-Vice theme music was fusion. It sold millions of albums. But since, we have seen the progressive rock and metal movement, whose seeds were firmly planted in the soil that fusion cultivated, come to the fore. Jazz-rock fusion, particularly the aspect of the genre that incorporated Indian carnatic music, led directly to the burgeoning world music scene. Jam band music with its jazz influenced improvisation and R & B groove propensities is the rightful heir to the fusion crown today. Even something as distasteful as smooth jazz is a run-off from the fusion river.
All of these newer movements, except the smooth stuff, have been slowly but inexorably moving fusion music forward by acknowledging the music’s past. You can hear it in recent tribute albums to fusion supergroups Mahavishnu and Weather Report. Bands such as Bangalore Breakdown, Garaj Mahal, Jimmy Herring’s new fusion band, Mars Volta and on and on are all children of jazz-rock. The new enthusiasm has renewed enough interest for Chick Corea to reform Return to Forever. Larry Coryell brought his jazz-rock group
The Eleventh House out of mothballs. And trailblazers such as John McLaughlin have returned to playing a more sophisticated and advanced fusion music. We are not kidding ourselves here. The heyday of fusion is over and we will never return to the days of commercial glory. Music can only be new once. But we take a positive attitude at Pulsar Sound. We are not going to join the legions of whiners and defeatists who cry that “jazz is dead” or “fusion has fizzed.” Rather, we are going to claim that fusion has influenced modern world music to such an extent that we can claim victory. There is plenty of great fusion and world music around. Let’s enjoy it!
It is with a new appreciation that Pulsar Sound begins to endeavor to honor the legacy and promote the future of fusion and world music. Pulsar Sound will offer you content provided nowhere else and will point you to music that will truly enhance the quality of your life. We will do this by providing you with top-notch journalism and the music to go along with it. Our mission is to promote the hell out of the music we love.
In our first issue we are proud to feature a guest column from the legendary fusion journalist Bill Milkowski. Our regular columnists will offer their views from the four corners of the world. Pulsar Sound will take you inside concerts by Garaj Mahal and the Five Peace Band. We begin our Fusion Hall of Fame and we present our initial InsideShow®. We will also introduce you to contemporary fusion and world music we love through our Pulsar Sound Picks. Don’t forget to listen to our streaming audio as you read. It features the artists that Pulsar Sound recommends you support.
P.S. At Pulsar Sound we will write about music we like and will not write about music we do not like. The decision to feature a review and video of The Bird Architects was decided before its drummer, the music journalist Marco Anderson, joined our staff. It would not have mattered anyway. But we do believe in full disclosure when we believe in it.
Walter Kolosky’s most recent book is Power, Passion and Beauty – The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra. He has also written extensively about jazz and fusion for Allaboutjazz.com, Jazz.com, Jazziz magazine and others.
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