Jazz-funk is a subgenre of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

music characterized by a strong

back beat In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse (regularly repeating event), of the ''mensural level'' (or ''beat level''). The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a pi ...

( groove), electrified sounds, and an early prevalence of analog synthesizers. The integration of

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mi ...

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest att ...

, and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or

disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric p ...

with jazz arrangements, jazz

riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...

s, jazz solos, and sometimes soul vocals. Jazz-funk is primarily an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

genre, where it was popular throughout the 1970s and the early 1980s, but it also achieved noted appeal on the club-circuit in England during the mid-1970s. Similar genres include soul jazz and

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and ke ...

, but neither entirely overlap with jazz-funk. Jazz-funk is more arranged and features more improvisation than soul jazz, and retains a stronger feel of groove and R&B versus some of the jazz fusion production.

Overview

An extension of the jazz field, jazz-funk exhibits several distinctive characteristics. A first is the departure from ternary rhythm (near-triplet), i.e. the "swing" (see

swing rhythm In music, the term ''swing'' has two main uses. Colloquially, it is used to describe the propulsive quality or "feel" of a rhythm, especially when the music prompts a visceral response such as foot-tapping or head-nodding (see pulse). This sen ...

), to the more danceable and unfamiliar binary rhythm, known as the " groove". Jazz funk was influenced by pure

, a genre that created this groovy rhythm, which was played by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the hono ...

y drummers

Clyde Stubblefield Clyde Austin Stubblefield (April 18, 1943 – February 18, 2017) was an American drummer best known for his work with James Brown. A self-taught musician, he was influenced by the sound of natural rhythms around him. His drum patterns on Brown's ...

and

John "Jabo" Starks John Henry "Jabo" Starks (; October 26, 1937Sources vary as to his year of birth. According to his obituary, published by Mobile Register, Starks was born on October 26, 1937; The New York Times gives 1938 – May 1, 2018), sometimes spelled Jab' ...

. A second characteristic of jazz-funk music was the use of electric instruments, such as the

Rhodes Piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

or the electric

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, particularly in

(or electro-jazz), and the first use of analogue electronic instruments notably by

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he hel ...

, whose jazz-funk period saw him surrounded on stage or in the studio by several

Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 20 ...

s. He used

Hohner D6 Clavinet The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tens ...

and others. Herbie Hancock was dedicated to jazz-funk on album like '' Head Hunters'' (1973). Later in the early 1980s, he threw electronic influences into the jazz-funk mix when he created '' Future Shock'' (1983) album. A third feature is the shift of proportions between composition and improvisation. Arrangements, melody, and overall writing were heavily emphasized. In a nutshell this is a departure from

funky jazz Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid ...

and

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

back to the street funk movement of the era. Examples of early jazz funk albums were Miles Davis' '' On the Corner'' (1972) and Jimmy Smith's '' Root Down'' (1972). The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Lightnin' Rod, T.S. Monk and Michael Henderson released jazz funk albums also. Jazz-funk dance is directly related to the genre, with

Jennifer Lopez Jennifer Lynn Affleck (' Lopez; born July 24, 1969), also known as J.Lo, is an American singer, actress and dancer. In 1991, she began appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on the sketch comedy television series '' In Living Color'', where she re ...

popularizing it in the sketch comedy television series In Living Color.

Development

At its conception, the jazz-funk genre was occasionally looked down upon by jazz hard-liners as a sell-out, or "jazz for the dance halls". It was insubstantially presumed by these to be not intellectual or elite enough, which led to controversy about the music crossing over, but it was making jazz much more popular and mainstream. From a pop audience perspective, the ambivalence towards the jazz-funk genre arose – despite commercial success – because it was "too jazzy" and therefore too complex. Arrangements and instrumental tracks in

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' ( ...

or R&B music requires less

initiation Initiation is a rite of passage marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components. In an extended sense, it can also signify a transformation ...

and allows the lead singer to relate to the audience, but jazz-funk was more focused on specific notes and overall music writing, so it seldom offered this same interaction with the audience. In the UK's nightclubs of the mid to late 1970s, DJs like Colin Curtis in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

's Graham Warr and Shaun Williams, and

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...

-based Ian Dewhirst and Paul Schofield championed the genre, along with Chris Hill and Bob Jones in the South. In the mid to late 1970s, London-based Soul and Funk pioneers drew a new audience to the genre: notably the

pirate station Pirate Station (russian: Пиратская станция) is the world's biggest drum and bass music festival.rare groove crate diggers–DJs in England who were interested in looking back into the past and re-discovering old tunes, such as

Norman Jay Norman Jay MBE (born Norman Bernard Joseph on 6 November 1957) is a British club, radio and sound system DJ. He first came to prominence playing unlicensed "warehouse" parties in the early 1980s, and through his involvement with the then-pir ...

and Gilles Peterson, and hip hop DJs such as Marley Marl in the US, helped both the jazz community and the pop professionals to understand the value of the genre.

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

Donald Byrd Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few hard bop ...

and

are seldom challenged as major influences on jazz. The Mizell Brothers have received official accolades from the industry and are being listened to widely. Their work has also been

sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of ...

d in more modern music. It is also worth noting that the more famous acid jazz movement is often seen as a rediscovery of 1970s jazz-funk, interpreted or produced by contemporary artists of the 1990s. One of the most blatant examples is the band US3, who were signed to Acid Jazz Records founded by Peterson and Eddie Piller. US3 covered

Cantaloupe Island "Cantaloupe Island" is a jazz standard composed by Herbie Hancock and recorded for his 1964 album ''Empyrean Isles'' during his early years as one of the members of Miles Davis' 1960s quintet. Hancock later recorded a jazz-funk fusion version o ...

, originally recorded by

, and reissue of rare grooves from the era, led by DJ Peterson and

Patrick Forge Patrick Forge (born Ipswich, Suffolk) is a British jazz, jazz-dance and soul music DJ who spent much of the late 1980s and early 1990s DJing alongside Gilles Peterson at the famous Dingwalls club in Camden, North London. In the 1980s, Patrick wor ...

in the United Kingdom.

Role of producers

Many mainstream artists in

used the talents of a few producers who were specialists in the genre and generated great commercial success. The Mizell Brothers - Larry and Fonce - were responsible for a lot of the jazz-funk wave as they single-handedly produced many of the major jazz-funk artists ( Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Gary Bartz, and more). Other producers included Philly musician

Dexter Wansel Dexter Gilman Wansel (born August 22, 1950) is an American R&B/ jazz fusion singer, arranger, musician, composer, conductor, synthesist and A&R director. Early life Dexter Wansel began as an errand boy backstage at the Uptown Theater in Philad ...

, generally acclaimed musicians (especially arrangers) themselves who tried their hand at sound-engineer, arranger, or composer. The Mizell Brothers produced most of Byrd's and Johnny "Hammond" Smith's jazz-funk.

UK jazz funk

While the vast majority of jazz-funk bands are American, several British jazz-funk artists and bands emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s who broke away from the disco and commercial scene, encouraged by club DJs like Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent who was then on

BBC Radio London BBC Radio London is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater London and its surrounding areas. The station broadcasts across the area and beyond, on the 94.9 FM broadcasting, FM frequency, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, ...

, and Greg Edwards who had a Saturday evening show on London's first ever commercial radio station Capital Radio. This type of music was also heavily played on Europe's first soul radio station, Radio Invicta and later pirate radio stations such as

Solar Radio Solar Radio is a London-based radio station, which originally started life as a pirate radio station. Solar broadcasts primarily soul to London on DAB and online. Solar (originally short for ''Sound of Londons Alternative Radio'') first broad ...

, Horizon, and Kiss FM. The first of these self-contained bands to establish a real UK identity was Light of the World formed by Breeze McKrieth, Kenny Wellington, Jean-Paul 'Bluey' Maunick, Paul 'Tubbs' Williams, Peter Hinds and David Baptiste. Offshoots of the band also formed

Beggar & Co Beggar and Co (also written Beggar & Co) are a British jazz-funk group formed by Kenny Wellington, David Baptiste and Neville 'Breeze' McKrieth, originally members of the group Light of the World. Overview Beggar and Co's first single was "(S ...

and Incognito.

Jazz-funk in the 2010s

Some heavy producers ( Jazzanova, Germany), some of whom are trained in classical music and jazz, are taking the elements of jazz-funk and using them in the full-electronic and computer assisted era. These movements are called nu jazz, and broken beat and are however heavily dominated not by instrumentalists, but rather by DJs.

References

External links

*
Jazz funk (History in Britain)

''Blues & Soul'' Magazine Online

Global Funk Radio
{{Jazzfooter Funk genres Jazz genres