4. LEARN ABOUT AVANT-GARDE JAZZ MOVEMENTS
Modal Jazz
So you got your Bebop, Cool Jazz and Hard Bop all going, and you decide you want a new sound, a different sound. What do you do? If you're Miles Davis, you go Modal.
Modal Jazz didn't have chord changes. Instead, it was all played on one chord, all improvised around one note. The first all-Modal album was Kind of Blue, which is one of the first jazz albums anyone should ever buy. Many people consider it the greatest jazz album ever, and with John Coltrane (sax), Cannonball Adderley (sax), and Bill Evans (piano) all playing with Miles' trumpet, it's not hard to see why.
Free Jazz
Roughly around the same time as Modal Jazz, Free Jazz was coming into being. Modal Jazz may have had only one note it would play off of, but Free Jazz had none. Just as the name implies, anything goes in Free Jazz, though often players would have more structure than was required, so the listener wouldn't get too lost. The best examples of Free Jazz musicians are John Coltrane (in his later years) and Ornette Coleman, who still plays today.
Fusion
Miles Davis didn't stop at helping found Cool Jazz and Modal Jazz; he moved on to create Fusion, a combination of jazz and rock that hit its stride in the 70s and 80s. The electric medium was used again, like in Hard Bop, but without the simplifications of that style. Fusion was (and is) the open-ended amalgamation of music going on in the U.S., and is still one of the most popular forms of jazz today. Fusion is perhaps the most easily accessible form of jazz for someone just starting the journey. Bitches Brew, an album by Davis, is a great example of Fusion, as is Herbie Hancock's Headhunters.
