Jazz-Funk & Disco: Part 1

Part 1: How jazz found funk - The birth of JazzFunk

From the electric Jazz experiments of the late 1960s to the golden age of Disco in the 1970s and early 1980s, this is the story of what happened when Jazz, Funk, Soul and the dancefloor collided.

Jazz has always been about movement, not necessarily the movement of a dancefloor, but the movement of ideas. Musicians constantly borrowed, experimented, reinterpreted and reinvented. And by the late 1960s, that experimentation was taking Jazz somewhere new.

Electric instruments were appearing.
Funk was dominating the dancefloor.
Soul was dominating popular music.
The bass was getting deeper, the drums were getting heavier, and Jazz musicians began to discover something that Funk musicians had understood for years:

The groove could be the driving force and destination. What followed was one of the most exciting periods in modern music.

Jazz infused the Funk.
JazzFunk found the Disco.
And Disco became electro-fied.

And with this, musicians who had begun their careers rooted deep in Jazz found themselves making records designed for the dancefloor.

This is the story of Jazz-Funk and Disco.

01 — JAZZ GOES ELECTRIC

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a period of extraordinary change in Jazz.

The acoustic Jazz tradition remained enormously important, but a younger generation of musicians were listening to everything around them. Soaking up artists like James Brown, Sly & The Family Stone, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.

The music was getting funky and Jazz musicians were paying attention.
Herbie Hancock moved from the sophisticated Jazz of his earlier career into the groundbreaking Funk of Head Hunters.

Donald Byrd moved from hard-bop into a deeply soulful, electric sound.
Roy Ayers brought his vibraphone into a warmer mixture of Jazz, Soul and Funk.
Lonnie Liston Smith explored Spiritual Jazz, Funk and electronic textures.
Grover Washington Jr. developed a smoother, groove-driven form of Jazz.
Eumir Deodato combined Jazz with Brazilian rhythms, elaborate orchestrations and the kind of Funk that could have been pulled directly from a classic Blaxploitation flick.

And suddenly, the distinction between a Jazz record and a Soul record was becoming increasingly difficult to define.

This new music became known as Jazz-Funk, it wasn't simply Jazz played over Funk, but a new musical language arranged by jazz musicians.
Fuelled by funky basslines and groove driven drumbreaks, backed by explosive percussion sections, with electric pianos, clavinets and synthesizers providing the jazzy improvisations directly into the groove.

02 — THE GROOVE BECOMES THE HOOK

One of the great things about Jazz-Funk is that it didn't require musicians to abandon their Jazz vocabulary. They simply changed the environment.

A musician could still improvise, but now the improvisation sat within a powerful rhythm section and groove.

The drummer could hold a pocket.
The bass could lock into a pattern.
The horns could punctuate the groove.
And the keyboards could create a vamp.

Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters became a landmark because it demonstrated that Jazz could be funky, accessible and commercially successful without sacrificing its core values.

Donald Byrd's Black Byrd pushed Jazz toward Soul and Funk, and Roy Ayers became one of the great bridges between Jazz and the emerging dance music culture. His music could sit comfortably in a Jazz club, a Soul club or a Disco set.

That versatility would become increasingly important in the evolution of this soundscape as the dancefloors were also changing.

03 — FUNK ENTERS THE PICTURE

While Jazz musicians were moving toward Funk, Funk itself was developing into something much wider in scope.

James Brown brought focus to the drummer and rhythm section, Sly Stone expanded it, George Clinton made it psychedelic and Maurice White added Jazz, Latin rhythms and elaborate arrangements.

Then Kool & The Gang brought their Jazz roots into a powerful Funk setting and groups such as Rufus & Chaka Khan, Slave, Cameo and T-Connection demonstrated just how sophisticated Funk could become.

Funk was no longer simply raw rhythm. It could have string sections, horn arrangements, jazz infused solos and melodic harmonies with increasingly sophisticated studio production.

This is where the road to Disco begins, because Disco wasn't the opponent of Funk, it was a descendant of Funk.