Crossover Jazz

In the wake of fusion's decline in the mid 1970s, jazz artists who continued to seek wider audiences began incorporating a variety of popular sounds into their music, forming a group of accessible styles that became known as crossover jazz.

Unlike the related genre smooth jazz, crossover jazz retains an emphasis on improvisation but attempts to make that improvisation commercially successful by couching it in a variety of marketable formats. Influential saxophonist Grover Washington and guitarist Wes Montgomery incorporated elements of funk and R&B into a sound based in hard bop, while singer Al Jarreau blurred the lines between jazz, pop and soul. Other artists, such as the Rippingtons and Spyro Gyra, injected their pop-flavoured instrumentals with Latin rhythms and electronic keyboards.
Some crossover jazz artists include David Benoit, George Benson , Kenny G, Boney James and Al Jarreau.

This description is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses materials from the Wikipedia article "Crossover jazz".