Furious jazz rock?
 

I'm looking for some hard rock that incorporates jazz elements/organs/keyboards and drumming styles and time signatures. A good reference point would be early Grand Funk Railroad and "Black Friday", "Do It Again" by Steely Dan...recommends? basically a ton of groove.

Steely Dan & GFR...furious jazz rock...really?

well to me. Haha. If you have better ideas I'm all ears. I've been listening to metal my whole life. My tastes are maturing I suppose. And apparently you like The Residents. So I will value your suggestions highly!

I think the Allman Brothers really get sold short in the jazz influenced rock department

Definitely Niacin - YouTube - Niacin - Barbarian @ The Gate , Dennis Chambers band - YouTube - Extraction ~Proto Cosmos~ 2003 , Return to Forever has some crazy jazz fusion stuff - YouTube - Return To Forever (w/Bill Connors) 1974 , also Weather Report - YouTube - Palladium by Weather Report , Cherry Five (nowadays called Goblin, maybe more prog rock than jazz fusion, but hey, still great) - YouTube - Country Grave-yard - Cherry Five
That's for now, if you want more stuff, just say, jazz fusion is THE genre for me.

Erm, well, if you like jazz & metal, and want a "furious combination" of the two:

Cynic - Focus
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Gorguts - Obscura

The gorguts release reminds me of Mingus.

I've heard all those bands but I'm going to get back into them. Biggest problem I have with them is the guitar tone (hard to carry over a distorted metal tone into expressive jazz) and it's lacking in the keyboard department. But it's all great stuff and thanks for jogging my memory about it.

I'd really recommend Kayo Dot's Choirs of the Eye, some post-rock with jazz elements.


This is good to know. I'm always looking out for dark/heavy jazz

With Gorguts, keep in mind their early stuff is traditional DM but their later stuff is where they got weird...

Anyways, I forgot Painkiller. Painkiller is John Zorn on sax/some vox, Bill Laswell on bass, and Mick Harris on drums & some programing. I'm not familiar with Bill Laswell, but John Zorn brings his saxophone, and Mick Harris - ex Napalm Death - brings his Grindcore and Dub inclinations to the fold. "Guts of a Virgin" is my favorite album by them.

Eh, I like a lot of old school metal, so I tend to look past the instruments being used and to how they're being used. Further, I think if a band can recreate a jazz experience using the same instruments Chuck Berry used.... well, that's all the more amazing.

Not familiar with Laswell? For shame ;)

Furious jazz rock ye say????
Here be all ye need!


:) Love that video

Though I guess some might be soft and want their more accessible stuff :( :p:

this Last Exit stuff is cool!!! thanks any other suggestions? this is along the lines of what I'm looking for, maybe a little more accessible with some swing to it.

Maybe some Canterbury scene? Gong, National Health, Caravan, Egg?
Then try some Mahavishnu Orchestra, Nektar, Magma, 'Medeski, Martin & Wood', Hiromi Uehara's band, Allan Holdsworth's stuff, Pekka Pohjola, Cynic, Galactic, Dennis Chambers stuff, Screaming Headless Torsos, Platypus... uff, and many more. Sorry for those that were already recommended to you. Some of them might also not be considered as jazz fusion (that's how I understand furious jazz rock), but prog rock, but nevertheless, check them out. For more recommendations, just say.

thank you so much for this. this clip made my month :D

that drummer is AWESOME

I recommend Iron Path, their studio release. Their live stuff is pretty insane so its harder to listen to.

You may also like another Laswell project, Arcana.

One of my favourite albums of all time, Arc Of The Testimony
Project feat. Laswell, Tony Williams on drums (His last album), Buckethead, Pharoah Sanders



EDIT - You might also like Sonny Sharrock's solo stuff, Ask the Ages or Guitar. All in a similar vein.

One MR Ronald Shannon Jackson. :D

There exists a brilliant little ep by an obscure band named "Every Man and His Llama". The title of this ep is "Bigger than Frogs". Whilst it may not be in production any longer, should one be able to find it as a download, it would certainly satisfy those 'furious jazz rock' cravings to which you refer. Excellent, excellent ep. Top grade medicine.

Worth it just for the drummers awesome hairdo:

FFFUUUUUU you beat me to it

Billy Cobham's "Spectrum" album is great
Dysrhythmia's "Pretest" and "Barriers and Passages" for some more recent material.
A lot of King Crimson.
Return to Forever's "Romantic Warrior"
Also, you might want to check out some of Frank Zappa's more jazzy pieces like "Zoot Allures" and "Inca Roads".
And as mentioned before, pretty much anything from The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Particularly "The Inner Mounting Flame".

And if someone can help me out, I can't remember the name of a John McLaughlin album that my grandfather showed me, but I think it's from the 80s, and its cover has a picture of John, and it's mostly white, I think.

Return to Forever, Traffic? Not heavy in any way but definetly talent filled band with the likes of Al Dimeola and Chick Corea.

Billy Cobham and Stanley Clarke both have some good jazz rock/fusion albums, check out

Inner conflicts, Spectrum, Life and Times by BC and School days by SC..

No shame, Conan... no shame.

LOL. That's pretty furious.

Check out miRthkon or Panzerballet for metal jazz combos, although I prefer the former, both are phenomenal.

Cool, thanks. I like the Panzerballet.

Will check out miRthkon. > Just listening to iTunes previews sounds like they love their Zappa.

Oh ja, total Zappa influence there, and I don't think that he would mind much. Definitely check out their instrumentals, they are heavier (except for the nuances of vocals) as a whole. Probably my favourite "fun" avant-garde band.

Sounds like some good stuff. Look forward to giving it a listen.

That - was - awesome.

LOL. Thanks for the tip. That was right up my alley. Do you know much of the band's origins? Any precursors I should know about?


According to their myspace page their influences are

I'm thinking Uniquetunes (from Russia, 2-3 albums). Or Thanatopsis (with Buckethead and Travis Dickerson).

Try them on youtube first to see if that's what you mean.

Well these are all some great influences jazz, classical and avant-garde wise (not counting Slayer and Meshuggah, that's probably where they emulate their rage from) but I can hear a lot of Mr. Bungle in their music, and bands such as Dr. Nerve have elements of their music that can be heard in miRthkon's work. Apart from that, I'd say rock in opposition/avant-prog music is the only other precursor that specifically caters to the sound of miRthkon, without going into the specific genres that the band meshes into their music.

all in the vein of metal and that one prog song.

Somebody mentioned the Allmans:

I was going to suggest Mouse On The Keys, but they are hardly "furious". Either way, check them out. However, The Flying Luttenbachers are certainly a fitting band.

1971 The Inner Mounting Flame by Mahavishnu Orchestra
1973 Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra

1974 Isotope by Isotope
1974 Illusion by Isotope

1976 Go by Go
1976 Go Live from Paris by Go
1977 Go Too by Go

1976 Strange New Flesh by Colosseum II
1977 Electric Savage by Colosseum II
1977 War Dance by Colosseum II

2008 A Very Nice Album by Nigel Kennedy

Also:

Once I made a thread about Dazzling Killmen.

It got some mixed responses a year or so later.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong but they're still the first band that pops into my mind when I hear a phrase like "furious jazz rock"

After listening to some previews I like what I heard but I'm not sure I would have ever labled them as jazz rock. If anything they seem reminiscent of someone like Big Black. Will track some down and give it a proper listen anyway.

Yeah, I suppose you're right.
Still, I feel that there's some Jazz in there - more so than in typical noise rock or post rock or math rock, et cetera.

Brand X
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Colosseum II
Santana(Caravanserai and later)
Passport

Eric Johnson's jazz-rock project, Electromagnets could be mentioned here.
"Furious" jazz-rock makes me think also of jazzcore, whose best representative is John Zorn and the supergroup Painkiller.