Fusion

A style of jazz developed in the late ’60s by Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and others, partly as a reaction to the eclipse of jazz on the music scene by rock. Fusion incorporated elements of rock into jazz and made greater use of repetition and non-improvised passages. The usually complex harmonic structure of jazz was simplified; the feeling of a tonal center or key tended to be established by repetition rather than harmonic movement. Rhythmically, straight-8 time and a strong backbeat predominated.