How much jazz was there in these classic rock artists?

For the prog rockers

 

I've long felt that the classical influence in prog is overstated, while the jazz influence is every bit as crucial, depending on which bands you're talking about. It was there from the very beginning with King Crimson. It was there with Yes, particularly with Bill Bruford's drumming. When you think about it, many of the notable prog drummers had a jazz background to one extent or another (Bruford, Collins, Palmer, Wyatt, Giles, Moerlen, etc.). The whole Canterbury scene, including bands like Soft Machine, Gong, Hatfield and the North, Matching Mole and National Health, was predominantly jazz oriented more so than symphonic and many of these bands crossed over to a straight up fusion sound over the years. In England during the 70s, there was a vibrant jazz rock scene that included the likes of Nucleus, Brian Auger, Jeff Beck, Keith Tippett, Colosseum II, Alan Holdsworth and Brand X. Other European progressive acts embraced the jazz influence as well including Magma and Lard Free from France, Area and Etna from Italy and Embryo from Germany. I'm just scratching the surface here. . .

In America during the 70s, although we didn't really have a comparable prog scene, a wide range of different bands exploring jazz to one extent or another, including such well known names Santana, Frank Zappa, Steely Dan and Chicago. From where I'm sitting, jazz had a significant impact on rock music throughout the the early to mid 70s.

 

In case anyone wondered what young Keith Emerson liked to play...

Keith Emerson Trio (1963)

 

Agreed.
Not that I said "a lot of prog.....", not all or even most. As toy you, it depends on the band. Yes is an interesting example. They clearly employed both jazz and classical influences. That's part of how they became uniquely Yes.

 

Jon Bonham and the Max Roach influence

 

agreed...this prog rock song is a good example of showing both Jazz and classical

 

Pentangle mixed jazz and folk

 

It would just depend on why the musician(s) in question wrote or played what they did. If they picked up minor pentatonics from jazz, and that's the sole reason they're using them, then jazz is a pretty significant influence for them in that.

 

Wiki: "Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found.[1] Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation."

I don't think an improvised musical solo can be defined in a genre. Almost any improvised solo in jazz can quote classical,, pop, or any other genre, even rock, latterly. Jazz has never been a monolith in that it has ballads, blues, burners, free, noise, and other stuff, none of which occupy the Jazz space alone. In addition the field of rock became a home for a "freeform" approach to music, almost with jazz, at a similar time, just delayed a little. If blues is in jazz DNA, how would a blues solo make it not jazz?

 

Because if they're playing blues notes in the solo, the the prime source of their influence is blues. It's still a blues solo. That it was composed spontaneously doesn't change that.

 

If what you say here is true then there are an awful lot of blues solos in jazz.

 

The two genres do blend a lot. But even jazz blues scales and chord progressions are not the same thing as straight blues chords and progressions.

An Introduction to Jazz Blues Guitar | Guitar World

 

That's talking about chord progressions, not solos. You have been talking about solos, not the structure of the song itself. Lots of jazzers use the dorian mode, and so do a lot of rock blues players. Rock blues players also add accidentals and chromatic passages to blues solos.

As for chord progressions, the Allman Brothers' rendering of "Stormy Monday," for instance, seems as harmonically complex or whatever the question is as the "jazz blues" thing you posted:

The Allman Brothers Band - Stormy Monday (Chords)

Is the claim now that if you play a certain chord progression it's jazzy, and if not it is not? That is a completely different claim than you were making before, but if you want to defend this one I don't know how successful you'd be insofar as one can certainly find both jazz and rock songs that muddy the waters...I did not realize that was a pun until after I typed it....

 

As I have said many times, we're talking degrees here. And we're looking at what degree across many elements. I've changed nothing other than honing in on certain elements at certain times.

Also, before I had a lot of focus on the notes employed in the melody of the solos... my last post focused on the chord progressions. Surely you understand that the two are inextricably linked? Therefore, talking about chord progressions isn't really different than talking about the melodies soloed over them (even if it was the first time I'd mentioned chords progressions, .... which it actually wasn't).

And even if a group has a song here or there that exhibits more jazz influence, I'm not going to put them at the top of the jazzy list if that's not their bread and butter.

Allmans have some jazz influence. I've not said otherwise.

 

I'm not sure how much I'm disagreeing with you about the main points, because your claims are sort of anodyne taken broadly, but at times the details seem more pointed. In any case, you could have a really harmonically complex solo over a simple chord progression, and vice versa. I would say that the chord progression distinction is harder to maintain, the soloing one seems more promising re: your argument, if you're going to differentiate jazz and blues. Coltrane's "Bessie's Blues" is I IV V, for instance, so "Stormy Monday" is way less basic or whatever our category is.

 

Fairport Convention also displayed Jazz influences

 

well.. there was that awful rumour about rod stewart and a certain football squad.

oh you meant jazz! sorry, my bad.

 

can't forget

 

wish i could zip through the 17 pages, but alas..

someone has had to have mentioned bossa nova densmore's beat to "break on through".

i am reminded of the doors having returned to this site. for me. break on through is the signature track by the doors and their musical highwater mark.

 

related video that mentions that covers the Jazz influences on some Rock bands/acts, the Beatles are mentioned

 

Ever since I started listening to more jazz, I've noticed more of it's influence on rock artists, especially drumming.

 

prog rock

 

This is true.

The thing about British Prog of the 70s is that its proponents would have been exposed to musical complexity as part of their regular schooling.

Folk music (and dance), choral music (hymns and otherwise) and classical music were included in terms of both participation and core music theory.

Until the late 70s / early 80s most kids would have had the chance to study music to some degree as part of the general curriculum and were also able (if they so wished) to learn piano or an orchestral instrument with one-to-one tuition and would even be loaned an instrument so they could practice at home.

So while you may not always be able to hear the classical influence in Prog the ability to extend musical ideas and incorporate complex harmony I believe definitely comes from the education system and classical music being seen as part of the broad sweep of the western / European Enlightenment and therefore having an intrinsic value.

Obviously Grammar School and privately educated kids had more access, smaller class sizes and better facilities (especially in the 1950s) but this was by no means strictly limited by social class and the consumption of classical music was certainly not the sole preserve of the upper classes or older age groups. Still isn't.

 

What if they never even listened to or studied any blues, but only learned blues scales from hair metal bands, or jazz, or whatever alternate source?

If we see influence as transitive--if A influenced B and B influenced C (in the same regard), then A influenced C, and so on--even if C is completely unfamiliar with A, then we'd need to say that the most influential musicians/composers ever (at least to our knowledge) are people like William IX Duke of Aquitaine and Hildegard of Bingen, because they're among the earliest composers we know about, and they did a lot to develop musical "language" period, so in some senses everything subsequent stems from them (as well as major musical historical figures like Perotin, Dufay, etc.) . But we don't really intuitively consider influence to be transitive, which is why no one says that William IX and Hildegard are among the most influential musical artists ever.

In order for A to be an influence on C, C has to be familiar with A's music, enough so that C is either intentionally or subconsciously emulating something about A's music. It is not at all necessary that A originated whatever is being emulated. If the reason that x is in C's music is that C is emulating A, then it doesn't matter if A originated x or not. C was influenced by A with respect to x. (This also avoids the problem that no one really invents anything in artworks whole cloth--it's all influenced by earlier things, and "original" features are almost always the result of minor tweaks as someone combines a number of different influences.)