The Fusion Years.
Music for Musicians.
[image: My stereo system circa 1983]
Taking a look back at my teenage years when I was introduced to jazz fusion music, and the impact it had on me early on.
I remember those cold winter Sunday nights of the early 1980's when I would sit on my bedroom floor eagerly anticipating the eight o'clock hour. I had a nice stereo system that included a monster Realistic STA-2080 receiver/amplifier pushing through a pair of Pioneer HPM-900 loud speakers. I had three cassette tape decks stack one on top of the other. I had my blank cassettes ready to go. The record/pause buttons were armed.
I turned on the receiver and tuned into 97 WLPX out of Milwaukee. Sunday night meant jazz-fusion night for the next four hours. In the late 1970's, on-air personalities used to play entire full length albums with no commercials. All you had to do was have a cassette ready to record and you could have the entire album for free. By the early 80’s, they changed that popular format to a “play single songs” format, regardless of length. They purposely tried to play some of the longest songs possible. These were referred to as "bathroom" songs, which meant that the DJ could take a long break to either go to the bathroom, drink a couple of beers, get high, or bump a line of coke with the radio station secretary in the back room.
I remember turning off the lights in my bedroom and turning on my black light which lit up the posters on the wall. The only other light in the room came from my stereo. This was my night light. By ten o'clock I had to put my headphones on so as not to keep the rest of my family awake after they all went to bed. I would lie in bed with my eyes closed, and I would imagine the late night city lights of Milwaukee or the dark empty rain soaked backstreets of Chicago, and what it must be like to be so cool as to have a job where you played records all night and drank coffee until dawn. There was this whole other nightlife that existed, but only to the night dwellers. I wanted to be one of those people. Listening to this music, the "fusion" music, was my escape to that under world. For as far back as I can remember, I have always loved life at night when everyone else is asleep. It's called being a night owl. I've worked many third shift jobs over the years. There most certainly is a peacefulness to the night, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. The energies of the world have dimmed and the calmness of the underworld skulks silently unnoticed. It's like being part of a well-kept secret that the day dwellers know nothing about.
Midnight came and the end of the program meant it was time to stop recording all those great songs. I would shut everything down and try to go to sleep. After all, I had to be at school in a few hours. The next morning I got ready for school, grabbed my boombox and the tapes I made the night before, and brought it all to school. You see, my high school was all about creativity and artistic expression; and since I was the bass player in the jazz band, I couldn't wait to share the music with my fellow band mates. We'd sit on the floor in the hallway and listen to a few of the songs until band rehearsal.
I knew by the time I was seventeen years old that music was going to be a very important part of my life. I was learning bass guitar and practicing the most difficult stuff I could find. To me, this was me honing my secret super powers of music. This may have been the beginning stages of my rebellious years. I was much more comfortable being alone doing my own thing with nobody else around to bother me. I liked thinking differently from everyone else. I loved being that mysterious enigma that nobody could ever figure out. Music did my talking for me. My guitars gave me a voice. I had a gift that no one could ever take away from me. Those later teens were the years that shaped my personality. The music I listened to was very different from the music my friends were listening to.
By the time I was out of high school, those radio stations stopped playing those long four-hour jazz programs and went to more conventional formats. The jazz-fusion era was relatively short-lived in its popularity. I feel extremely lucky to have grown up in that time when some of the most difficult jazz music ever played, was part of my listening wheelhouse. Fusion to me, was the holy grail of music. For some, fusion was an acquired taste that not everyone got. That's because most fusion music did not have any vocals or lyrics for people to sing. Fusion was considered music for musicians. It was our own private club that you had to earn the right to be part of.
I still listen to my old albums from time to time. Mostly, everything in my collection is on my smartphone now. All 50,000+ songs! Isn't modern audio technology amazing? I make playlists on my phone of all of those great songs I used to listen to as a kid, and they bring me right back to that time in my life when I was an idealistic dreamer with a mind open enough to absorb exciting, new music. It is sometimes difficult to think in terms of so many of those insane musicians now being in their 70's and 80's - or dead. Regardless, the music is still as young as it was when it first came out nearly a half century ago. I miss those days.
Who do I listen to?
Al Jarreau, Allan Holdsworth, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Jean-Luc Ponty, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Al Di Meola, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius, Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, Brothers Johnson, Billy Joel, Steely Dan, Stanley Clarke, Bob James, Boz Scaggs and many more.