The Development of Fusion Music Exemplified in the Guitar

Fusion music, one of the significant styles in modern jazz, has up to this point been almost exclusively documented from a historiographical/biographical or sociological standpoint. The few musical/structural analyses focus mainly on individual musicians or pieces of music; a fundamental, intrinsically musical examination of the genre is to this day still lacking. This projected, synoptic study of the guitar in fusion music will go a great distance toward filling this gap: the guitar`s dominance in the genre makes it an ideal focal point for a study of the exceedingly diverse area of fusion music as a whole. The project is unique in its particularly wide range of analytical questioning (microtiming, harmonic color tendencies, sound generation, musical interaction, creative dramaturgy, etc.). The answering of these questions and the appropriate visual representation thereof requires the preparation of musical documents in the form of partial and complete transcriptions. This method simultaneously allows a dependable analytical approach and a high degree of academic confirmability. Publication in the renowned journal Beiträge zur Jazzforschung / Studies in Jazz Research, published by the International Society for Jazz Research and the Institute for Jazz Research at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz will ensure that the project reaches an international audience.

The goal of this project was the creation of a sound, music-based description of the fusion music genre. Due to the extremely broad nature of the music, the guitar was chosen to exemplify the genre as a whole; due to its dominance in fusion music it is particularly well suited to represent the style. The guitarists chosen as primary research subjects were John McLaughlin, George Benson, Allan Holdsworth, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Mike Stern and Pat Metheny; these were to be complemented by Gbor Szab, Larry Coryell, Pat Martino, John Abercrombie, Larry Carlton, Marc Ribot, Al Di Meola, Hiram Bullock and Wayne Krantz.In the examination of the source material, consisting of about 4,500 pieces, Wayne Krantz emerged as an insignificant figure in this context. However, Gbor Szab proved to be the most important individual for the development of the genre; as a result, the project came to focus primarily on his work in the end. The depth of detail required by the research led to the discarding of a general overview of the genre as the project structure; instead, it was decided that a selective approach, consisting of at least two monographs, would be better suited to the overall goal. The first of these two monographs now constitutes the primary result of the project; continuation will require a corresponding follow-up project.The existing monograph will be published in 2016 under the title The Musical Style of Gbor Szab, as part of the series Beiträge zur Jazzforschung / Studies in Jazz Research. Additionally, 15 lectures were given in the framework of the project (in Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain) and five additional papers published, examining selected aspects of fusion music (the role of timing in music, the music of Marc Ribot, the reception of Indian instrumental colors, Gbor Szab's Hungarian influences, a comparative analysis of "Autumn Leaves", the fusion repertoire and transnational aspects of the music).Roughly 230 pages of musical transcription were produced in the course of the research. Over half of this material appears in the aforementioned monograph; the remaining transcriptions were published in various individual papers.