his following release Bitches Brew. The music blends jazz with rock
music, and specifically rock electric guitar. Miles was very impressed
with the new pop music that was not necessarily mainstream;
influences came from James Brown to David Crosby. Jazz-rock
fusion first became popular in the mid-1970s. Traditional jazz
instruments, such as the trumpet became electric. Keyboards, guitar,
and bass were now all electric. Miles, for instance, sometimes used a
"wah wah" pedal with his trumpet during this period. Many of Miles'
sidemen went on to become some of the bigger names in this genre,
such as Chick Corea, John McLaughlin; Tony Williams, Billy Cobham,
and of course Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter with their super-group
Weather Report (which contrary to the norms of this genre, used no
lead guitar.)
other forms of music that it was becoming hard to tell what direction
jazz was taking. Some of the younger players may have felt something
was missed before the 1970s and decided to look backwards for
inspiration. The result is a more bop-based or Dixieland oriented
music with some modern electric updates. The biggest name from this
genre is Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961). Other "young lions" (as they have
become known) include: Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, Cindy
Blackman, Wallace Roney, Terence Blanchard, and Nicholas Payton.