Genre story · Other
Psychedelic Jazz
Improvised jazz opening toward electric repetition, studio effects and the longer forms associated with psychedelia.
Psychedelic Jazz is a broad term applied to Jazz musicians who experimented with amplified instruments, sustained rhythm, electronic treatment and music associated with the Psychedelic era. Miles Davis's late-1960s and early-1970s recordings helped make some of those possibilities more visible, while Sun Ra and other artists pursued very different cosmic and improvisational approaches. The genre name is not a stable claim about every jazz musician who used unusual timbres. A psychedelic-jazz track may remain strongly improvisational or move closer to jazz fusion, funk and experimental rock. The origin of jazz itself is much older, and rock experimentation did not invent jazz improvisation.
Listening examples
- 1965Sun RaThe Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One
- 1970Miles DavisBitches Brew
- 1973Herbie HancockSextant