Who do you consider the true pioneer of un-smooth jazz music?

[Max Rockatansky]

Taraf de Haïdouks

They are not even a smooth jazz group.

Come on, many of these answers are wack and have no knowledge about the history of smooth jazz.

Wack answers beg the question, what is the take of the crowd on pioneer history of un-smooth jazz?

[formulanone]

Miles Davis, around the time of Bitches Brew...a challenging but rewarding listen.

There's probably a few fusion jazz artists before that, my knowledge and experience is limited in that regard.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Buddy Bolden in New Orleans.

[formulanone]

Buddy Bolden in New Orleans.

Fair enough.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Buddy Bolden in New Orleans.

Fair enough.

Thank you

[Scott5114]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30FTr6G53VU

[Rothman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30FTr6G53VU

Meh.  Too much has been made about Giant Steps.  More about Coltrane being questionable in the studio and his musicians paying the price than it is about the difficulty of the music.

[Scott5114]

Meh.  Too much has been made about Giant Steps.  More about Coltrane being questionable in the studio and his musicians paying the price than it is about the difficulty of the music.

I have never heard of this–could you explain? (I know people poke a little bit of fun at Tommy Flanagan's solo on "Giant Steps" due to his appearing to have difficulty keeping up with the chord changes, but it's entirely possible that was done intentionally to contrast against Coltrane's fluidity, and either way it doesn't seem to have hurt his reputation any–he ended up working with Ella Fitzgerald for a decade after that, after all.)

[Rothman]

Meh.  Too much has been made about Giant Steps.  More about Coltrane being questionable in the studio and his musicians paying the price than it is about the difficulty of the music.

I have never heard of this–could you explain? (I know people poke a little bit of fun at Tommy Flanagan's solo on "Giant Steps" due to his appearing to have difficulty keeping up with the chord changes, but it's entirely possible that was done intentionally to contrast against Coltrane's fluidity, and either way it doesn't seem to have hurt his reputation any–he ended up working with Ella Fitzgerald for a decade after that, after all.)

Coltrane was obsessed with spontaneity, so he sped the tune up in the studio, much to the shock of Flanagan and the others.  Flanagan's solo was choppy because of that last minute, surprise change.

Eh, I suppose you could still call Coltrane a genius in that regard, given the result.

As a piano player myself, sure, Coltrane's music theory is pretty incredible, but you could give any player of Flanagan's caliber the tempo and chords beforehand and they can handle Giant Steps.

YouTube seems inundated with a bandwagon of musicians just saying, "Ooooo...fast crazy chord changes...so difficult..."  And then they turn around and pump out decent solos and whatnot.  Can't imagine what the incentive is to hype it up...

[Scott5114]

Oh, gotcha. I thought you were implying that Coltrane was, like, actually abusing Flanagan and Chambers or something. (Speaking of, Chambers seems to have put in a completely flawless performance on "Giant Steps" so far as I can hear.)

The thing that fascinates me about "Giant Steps" is not so much the technical skill in playing (which is impressive, but I get that it's basically muscle memory) but in the absolutely bonkers key/chord changes that take place over the course of the song. I'm sure that there are songs these days that manage to use the entire circle of fifths without breaking a sweat, because now we can feed sheet music into a computer and hear what the result is supposed to sound like, but that sort of thing was harder to pull off in Coltrane's day.

[Henry]

Miles Davis, around the time of Bitches Brew...a challenging but rewarding listen.

There's probably a few fusion jazz artists before that, my knowledge and experience is limited in that regard.

Let's not forget that Herbie Hancock played in Davis' band for several years, when they were still doing the traditional jazz style. While I agree that Bitches Brew was a great album, Head Hunters remains the gold standard for fusion albums, and it showed that Hancock was able to update his style for the always-changing times. He proved it once again with Rockit in the 80s, with his keyboard being backed by samples and loops throughout that inspired many rap artists that were coming out at that time.