Remembering 70's Jazz Fusion

The era of music when jazz and rock merged into a style called "Fusion".

​Remembering 70's Jazz Fusion

In 1976, I started taking guitar lessons. I was 13 years old. All I really knew about music was pop radio and some rock. My hero was Peter Frampton. When his live album came out earlier that year, it changed a lot of the way I was hearing music. The more I learned about "guitar music", the more I began to really pay attention. By 1977, I owned five vinyl record albums: "Aerosmith - Toys in the attic, Fleetwood Mac - Rumours, Led Zeppelin - Four and Styx - Grand Illusion. I was much more into building my cassette tape library. I owned several boomboxes. I liked that I could take my music with me. Earlier that year, Steely Dan released the album "Aja". It was a monster album for me. I practiced that album every day. I tried to learn how to play Chuck Rainey's bass parts to every song. I got pretty close on most of them. That album will always be my number one favorite album of all times.

In 1978, I started my senior year at Horlick High School. I went to scho…