Best theory behind jazz fusion chords

[Alex Baril]

Electronic musician wanting to expand my sound palate to include mid 70s type fusion progressions ala Weather Report, Les McCann, Return to Forever. Best resource for getting into this heady kind of stuff?

[arbogast]

I'd say there's no "best way", generally. For me, the best way is to listen, listen, listen. And then listen some more, while trying to figure out whats happening with chords, baseline, melody and trying to recreate it in the keyboard. Being pragmatic, I've also consulted various 'fakebooks' in parallel to the listen/recreate process. Do You have some specific examples?

[lfm]

Electronic musician wanting to expand my sound palate to include mid 70s type fusion progressions ala Weather Report, Les McCann, Return to Forever. Best resource for getting into this heady kind of stuff?

Check out Matt Johnson Jamiroquai channel

Here is one to start with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL6Us-cl1mI

and here another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-HqEZiO5uU

He has a lot of good tutorials where he also explains how it works.

It's in there if you look through for tips and lessons
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... jamiroquai

I found a lot of books here
https://www.musicshopeurope.com/smp-welcome

There are usually many transciptions of particular songs from various artists.

[Chandlerhimself]

Th best resource is "Beyond functional harmony" by Wayne J. Naus however it might be out of print. He has a new book that seems similar, but I haven't read it. He goes over different techniques to create fusion progressions. You can check out the sound sample and see if it sounds like what you're looking for.
https://www.alfred.com/beyond-functiona ... -ADV11225/

His new book is this
https://www.alfred.com/advanced-harmoni ... -ADV11226/

There are other books that cover similar material, but this basically a manual on how to create harmony like Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, the Yellow Jackets, Wayne Shorter, etc. I hope that helps.

[funky lime]

everyone's different of course, but for me, what works better than reading books or watching infotainment videos is choosing a song or part I like, listening to it about a million times, and slowly figuring out how to play it on the keys (varispeed helps a lot! so does breaking the process up into tiny chunks). sheet music can be helpful for sure, but beware of guitar tabs and midi files especially ... many of them are just straight up wrong! then once i've got all the basic sounds and shapes under my fingers, i can start to think/write about what is actually happening, and experiment with voicings and whatnot.

if you do want infotainment videos instead, i recommend adam neely videos on jazz reharmonization. he has a few videos where he takes simple pop songs and shows how to turn them into jazz fusion style chord progressions, for better or worse. you could perhaps pick up a few ideas there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXfQsHT5c30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3WR-F_pnM

[jancivil]

As to "everyone's different", a definite yes, and particularly following the advice to go out and buy one specific book (with no info as to the OP's background in harmony at all).

I have to say if there is a "best" resource it's your ear. Now your ear has to be developed and in concert with information and received knowledge, here regarding harmony. However the best jazz musician I knew from the home town was afaict 100% ear*.

So, I *grew up hearing 'modern jazz', and practically no 'classical' music. So when I wanted to get beyond what I could pick up off rock records (which largely do not carry much of a prerequisite store of teh received knowledge or books), I innately picked up extensions and was eager to use them. So my first part-writing in class had me getting 7ths and 9ths et al in the moments in between where a harmony off the board had to land. And it was swell.

IE: I wouldn't have a high expect of someone coming to any book from a blank slate, and frankly the description 'an electronic musician' in itself carries scant expectation in terms of harmonic theory.
Then, I would say your chromatic (or 2nd year typically) harmony course is going to get you half if not most of the way there. I don't reckon leaping - skipping ahead historically - into Wayne Shorter et al sans the background of all that, which was reharmonizing show tunes and popular numbers while seeking to obtain more of the full chromatic (hence the idea of tonicizing the other harmonies with their own ii7-V7 routine; then**) is the wiser move.

Not long after community college m.t. I found a thing, Bill Evans Songbook which is as illuminating af in regards to jazz precepts & in context of some music. But you have to have some things first, eg., recognize your vertical sonorities by sight, & have done some part-writing (so you know not everything you see in a vertical sonority amounts to a [block] chord).

But to be fair that (or any number of) book probably going to hip you to some concepts like **the flat 5 substitution idea†; that your ♮11 doesn't happen on a dominant-type chord (V7 †or bII7) - nor a maj7 type - but on a minor (eg., ii7); nor is the major 7 your basic 7th on that dominant type... A couple of these apparent already from the key signature; but while your (V7) b9 is, #9 ain't in there [minor key]. And whence the #11?
But now the precepts require a testing ground, in actual music and we'll find them violated in some cases, because jazz be like that.

[jackdnp121]

best way to improve is to find yourself a bunch of jazz / fusion musician ...

and JAM with them

Along with Listen to all the greats

[Aloysius]

... starting with Lil Wayne.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g762REJWcg

“How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Lil Wayne”. — Jimi Hendrix

[jancivil]

https://youtu.be/qAeMI8w_9xc?si=DAzHLARezOm2ux9F

[BertKoor]

https://youtu.be/qAeMI8w_9xc?si=DAzHLARezOm2ux9F

Definitely an excellent performance.
But what's the "theory" here, Jan?

The piece is, what, 10 minutes? You can spend one/several minutes or a hundred words per bar to analyse it.

But if you don't have the tools / knowledge to do that, the only thing to do is sit down, listen in awe and enjoy it.

[jancivil]

Here's the solo piano intro
https://youtu.be/6JGKY1CX3V0?si=x6PNM4yLhJQxC4UP
which has the score scrolling by, & made nicely transparent so not blocking the view.

"if you don't have the tools" - I wouldn't think you mean a specific 'you', ie., me here. But:
I made a remark at the end of a fairly long post (for today's internet?), that some of the precepts I brought in are violated because jazz is "like that", ie., freer than 'theory'. Confer Debussy and "There is no theory" when asked about things that don't fit classical thinking.

This happens pretty frequently with Wayne Shorter, who would write harmonies that are difficult if not impossible to name as chords, and there is a lot of that here.
EDIT: I saw something that isn't there so the analysis needs revising.
Bar 3 is an F^7#4 (#11) over an E pedal if we have to call a tertial harmony (lead sheets all write F^7); the top line moves in that (2 16ths, 8th) motif which runs throughout up to C, which suspends over the next bar over what, a B major 6; the 6th now a minor 6 and the motif at the top moves to D, a #9 so here's B b9 to #9 b13 so-to-speak but_no_seventh. Naming that as if making a lead sheet, well the extant lead sheet merely writes B7, ok. Bill Evans has more on his mind, evidently. Then the next bar of said lead sheet writes C^7 while the second half of the bar here moves from C^7#4 to a quartal harmony Ab D G with that motif doing E D E over a Bb bass.
I get what it is because I write linearly, having models like this in my school daze, but I'm not ready to write that up even if I felt it would be appreciated. (I don't.)

NB: this interests me because it's part-writing {aka voice-leading}, quite more than following the lead sheet, I want to know what Bill Evans in fact did.

So no, I def. know how to talk about these specific objects but to explain his reasoning without some work, well, I'm certainly not this facile at the moment...
[and frankly this will be a bit rich for this venue were I so inclined (and prepared).]
There may be a point where talking about it is just not it.

The real point of me posting this music (note the comment on the YT page, 'next level transcendence') with no preface is we want to listen as opposed to talk (and pretend to know.)

[BertKoor]

Thx.

But: crawling, walking, running. In that order. Bill Evans is going faster than anyone else.

I'd advice to start with analysing something easier and better suited to apply immediately. More modern, poppy, catchy. Earth Wind & Fire for example. Any song will do. The chords / arrangements sound refined, I'd even say "expensive".

[jancivil]

I hope that's advice for the original poster, who may have split this popsicle stand entirely.

a couple of point-free posts like we saw here, and I feel free to go for the gusto.

{other people than the OP who doesn't follow up on their own thread might be reading, or even happy to see something more elevated, particularly after the serial nitwit's having a piss}

[BertKoor]

Yes, my advice is only for the OP (and other peeps in the same position)

[jancivil]

I'm out of here