Is Kimock Jazz?
I'd throw out the term Jazz as antiquated.
Jazz had its time (and, oh, sure; some folks still play 'just' jazz and thats cool too) and it's been absorbed and is being redistributed via groups such as Steve Kimock Band in a fusion beyond what used to be called fusion.
Consider that Jazz is blues you can dance to. Throw in a little ragtime and some horns instead of 2-string homemade guitars. Improv came on and it became more than just copping the melody. Turning the melody inside out, upside down and jamming it six-ways til the sun came up became a thing to do.
Throughout this, periodic watered-down spin-offs which the unknowing non-night-clubbing masses came to call jazz made mad loot for a few while the real innovators still sweated it out in the clubs; hopping trains and riverboats to get to that next job, hear that hot player and, make another dollar. Innovation doesn't often make one rich especially for a African-American musician in the first half of the twentieth century. But the race records made their crossing-over and many of the greats got their due... some of it, anyway.
Be-bop came and went and then again, maybe it never went for some folks. Cool was born and free jazz and such fractured the scene in fractal patterns of chaotic growth...
Meanwhile blues hadn't faded. Folks kept on playin'; beamin it out on the Flower Hour (not Flower Power, folks that came later). Screaming across the great plains to all the kids in the midwest- Sonny Boy Williamson and such. This blues trained the ear of a whole 'nother generation who didn't make the jazz clubs... and so rock and roll was born.
Somewhere on the sidelines another music form was born- bluegrass. Folks pickin and jammin on tunes their grandpappy taught 'em. Somehow, as if in sympathetic synch with the jazz freaks they developed a jamming style that, while quite different, also carried with it the ambitious freedom of Americana.
(-BTW, doesn't it make you laugh when an un-initiated so-and-so questions Bela Fleck's validity as a jazz player cos he's on banjo? Banjo's older than Kenny G's Alto Sax... And don't get me started on that guy, you've all read Metheney's rant, right?)
A new generation of rock came up but bred not just on the blues but also on the rockabilly and cowboy singers and even on bluegrass and the incestuousness of American musical forms became rampant...
Come the 1960's everybody was doing a few things... folk-rock and Miles using electric instruments and a *gasp* backbeat! and jugband-turned-folk-blues-rock groups took that and and a whole lot more and made something great. (You might know this as Grateful Dead). But there was more than just the Dead. They (believe it or not) were not the alpha and omega of American music.
Fusion came on as a genre of rock/jazz inspired by Miles. Funk was born out of blues/gospel come R&B add a little rock and a whole lotta soul and they too could jam (usually more than the Fusioneers). I'll throw in hard rock/ heavy metal but I think we can safely blame that on the Brits... Gotta give them credit for taking a good thing and making something well, different.
Again Rock & Jazz & Funk became watered down for the masses and, although many purists soldiered on, even Miles called it a day.
Somewhere though all this a young guitar slinger came from PA to CA. He'd heard alot and unconciously filtered & processed it. He knowingly embraced sensibilties from across the board and proceeded to make a respectable go of it.
Flash forward... Its the end of 2000. A century of American music gone by and this guitar player (lets call him, say, Steve Kimock) has a new lineup in a group he formed 10 months prior.
Funk seeps from their speakers, but with jazz-minded twists and rock & roll beats and hillbilly riffs taboot.
This is not just jazz.
This is not just funk.
This is not just rock.
And it aint bluegrass.This is an auditory smorgasbord.
Jamming American Music.
J.A.M.
JAM©2001- jmh
About the Author jmh is a family man who is thankfull for beer, LPs, and extra guitar strings. Donations of any of these things or cash for their purchase will be happily accepted.