1967-1969United States

Jazz Fusion

Also known as Fusion

A concise, listener-friendly jazz-fusion entry grounded in official artist pages and canonical recordings.

Origins and context

Jazz musicians in the United States began combining jazz improvisation with rock, funk, and electric instrumentation in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

United States

History

The style took shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s as jazz musicians began folding electric instruments and rock energy into their work. Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew is widely treated as a landmark in that shift, and Davis’s official site describes it as a record that helped usher in a new approach to jazz and rock known as fusion. Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra then helped define the genre on their own terms, with Weather Report’s official artist page tracing the group to the electric jazz-fusion space opened by In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, and Apple Music describing Mahavishnu Orchestra as a pioneering fusion group that built on John McLaughlin’s Miles Davis-era experience.