The influence of jazz on the improvisational ethos of rock music in the 1960s has often been acknowledged but rarely explored in detail. The impact of the modal approach pioneered by jazz artists like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, characterized by long exploratory improvisation over static harmony, was especially pronounced on the style of extended instrumental jamming of the West Coast psychedelic movement in the late 1960s and then more broadly into the wider impulse of live band performance through the early 1970s. This project is an effort to examine this relationship more deeply. Focusing on salient recordings of the period, examples discussed will include The Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s “East-West”, Grateful Dead’s “Live Dead”, and The Allman Brothers Band’s “Live at Fillmore East.”
About the presenterDouglas Sherry
Independent Scholar History of Jazz, Blues and Rock