Background
In the 1960’s and 70’s, Jazz took elements from Rock and Funk music (specifically the rhythms and electric instruments) to create Fusion. The success of Jazz-Rock Fusion prompted other musicians to try and merge Jazz with other genres of music. Musicians and record labels realised that by fusing Jazz with other genres they can make it more ‘listable’ and thus expose Jazz to a wider audience. In other words – they realised they could make money.
Crossover Jazz
So in the late 1970’s and 1980’s a second wave of musicians began combining Jazz with various other genres to create a whole bunch of new sub-genres. These included things like:
- Jazz-Funk – which combined Jazz and Funk
- Pop-Jazz – which combined Jazz and Pop
- New Age Jazz – which combined Jazz and Easy Listening music
- Smooth Jazz – combined Jazz, Pop and RnB
Many of these subgenres overlap. You’ll find that many artists straddle across many of these style. For this reason, all these post-1980’s sub-genres of Jazz are often lumped together and called ‘Contemporary Jazz’ or more accurately ‘Crossover Jazz’. This is simply Jazz that tries to merge with another genre of music in order to be commercially successful. So they are ‘crossing over’ from Jazz to another genre, and from a niche genre to a commercially successful genre.
But in order to more ‘listenable’ and appeal to a wider audience Crossover Jazz tends to be…less jazzy. Instead of playing Jazz standards, Smooth Jazz musicians often played over contemporary Pop songs.
Crossover Jazz still uses some jazzy ideas and techniques.
- It uses 7th chords – maybe even with a natural 9th or a 13th added occasionally – though you will also see plenty of triads
- You’ll find slash chords and suspended chords
- You’ll still find the use of modes and Pentatonic scales and Blues scales
- You may come across a quartal chord every now and then
- The pianist may ‘comp or play a vamp
- The melody may used anticipation
- You may even see a ii-V7-I
- It can use either a swing or a straight rhythm and there will still be some syncopation
But you’re not going to see anything too out there or dissonant or chromatic. You’re not going to see very many:
- Tone clusters
- Heavily altered chords
- Complex chord substitutions
- Heavily chromatic or atonal soloing
- Exotic scales like diminished and augmented scales
So Smooth
Unlike Jazz-Rock Fusion, which was actually quite adventurous, quite chromatic, quite polytonal and polyrhythmic; Crossover Jazz is comparatively safe. It tends to avoid anything that could sound unpleasant or dissonant or ‘wrong’. Crossover or Smooth Jazz solos tend to:
- Use short and sparse phrases
- Use lots of repetition and sequences
- Be quite consonant and smooth
- Move by step a lot – to create smooth, melodic lines. Or if you do use a larger jump in one direction (say, up) this is generally followed by steps in the other direction (down)
- Use long notes at the beginning of phrases
Most importantly, Crossover Jazz generally takes the rhythm of the other non-Jazz musical genre. Whereas Traditional Jazz has that swung 8th note or triplet feel. And Fusion may use an 8th note Rock feel. Crossover Jazz may borrow from Funk or RnB and have a nice and funky 16th note feel. (see below video for examples of these).
Jazz…but with less Jazz
One of the earliest examples of Crossover Jazz is George Benson’s version of Breezin’. This song just uses a 1-6-2-5 progression in D on repeat. It has gentle violins and woodwind instruments in the background throughout the song. It’s got a really slick RnB 16th note beat. It’s 5 min 40 sec long in total but the solo only lasts for about 1 min 30 sec and is pretty safe and pleasant, mostly diatonic, and a little bit bluesy. Have a listen to a recording of this song.
The question that naturally arises is: Is this actually Jazz? And the answer obviously depends on your definition of Jazz. If you think Jazz is about virtuosity, and pushing the limits, and complexity, and playing Jazz standards, and being moody and raw and bluesy – then no, this is not Jazz. Improvising over a few triads using a Major scale for 20 seconds doesn’t make it a Jazz song. You could argue that this is really ‘instrumental Pop’ music. But on the other hand, many of the Jazz standards we now play were Pop songs written for Broadway by people like Gershwin or Porter or Berlin. Swing music was Pop music in the early 20th century. What’s wrong with updating the repertoire and playing modern Pop songs? Some subgenres of Jazz, like Hard-bop and Soul Jazz, are relatively simplistic. Is that a problem? And Jazz has always borrowed elements from other genres of music, whether it be Soul or RnB or Blues or Funk or Rock or Classical. Is there any reason it’s can’t also borrow from Pop or Easy Listening music? But on the other other hand, Smooth Jazz just doesn’t sound that jazzy.
Have a Listen to
So Smooth Jazz grew out of Fusion but is much less adventurous, more polished, and relies on rhythms and grooves more than on improvisation. Is this really Jazz? Have a listen to some of these artists and you decide.
- Yellowjackets
- Sypro Gyra
- David Sanborn
- Grover Washington Jr.
- Kenny G
- Gregg Karukas
- George Winston
- David Benoit
- Fourplay
