Progressive vs Fusion?

[Newc]

No, not car insurance

What's the primary difference between Progressive Rock and Fusion? Don't they both feature elements of Jazz and Classical?

Does Fusion lean more towards Jazz, or does it even have Rock elements in it?

[thetroy]

I've usually found things labelled fusion are more like jazz-metal. It's usually pretty fast with a lot of soloing.

Prog stuff can be like that but it seems like it's often very slow and "artsy" which I find boring as hell!

[Adam]

Fusion - super-pretentious Jazz with bad distorted tone

Prog - super-pretentious rock with bad keyboards



USUALLY. Of course there are exceptions. Mastodon considers themselves somewhat prog, for instance, and there ain't nothing bad about them.

[Endrik]

the main difference is the rhythm, fusion rhythm is very flowing, very free time jazz feel, prog has certain breaks and patterns wich make the music sound prog.

harmony and chord progressions are totally different, fusion chord progressions are very tricky, and the bass line is always moving and changing. Full of crazy jazz chords and whatnot.
prog uses certain chords wich give "atmospheric" feel, like Sus4, sus2 etc. it's more similar to classical music.

Fusion is lighter music, it's a jazz wich is mixed with funk, latin, rock, tribal, soul and everything else-
Prog sounds darker and is usually heavier. Prog's roots are jazz and psychedelic rock but with a melanholic/dark classical music vibe.

Both are technically very demanding, fusion players tend to be more skilled though.
Prog is all a about the sounds, fusion is all about the feel

[Endrik]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-NuC7UYJtU

vs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKBLSkN2sRk




also a lot of fusion dudes have played prog and a lot of prog dudes have played fusion

[dg]

"Fusion - super-pretentious Jazz with bad distorted tone"



Saw Pat Metheny & everything's going great until he pulls out the synth guitar & goes off for 10 minutes or so in some horrid fake woodwindy tone. It was like getting teeth pulled. I got the hell out of there & got me a brown-liquor drink.

[Newc]

Thanks all. I've always heard RUSH described as Progressive, and stuff like Frank Zappa or Adrian Belew as Fusion. I recently downloaded Big Electric Cat (Belew), since I've never actually heard anything the man ever did (met him at NAMM in 04 but had nothing to say to him )

I've also heard a couple of Frank Gambale things (videos on Night Flight on the USA Network years ago) and some clips here and there - couldn't stand it when they started playing out of key, and doing it on purpose
Those guys were all always described as 'Fusion', but then there's RUSH doing all those wierd Jazz-influenced time changes and such, though with a lot more melody (and better distortion and keyboards ), but was never really sure of where they were separated.

Adam's definitions work for me, though :ROTF:

[Endrik]

Zappa is prog, so is Belew, specially with King Crimson

playing out of key is cool

[Grandturk]

When I think of prog-rock, I always think that if you're not at least a little embarrassed to be listening to it, they haven't really done their job. Yeah, 2112 is great and all, but its a little silly - and that's what makes it great.