When Chieli Minucci put word out that his new album, a Special EFX project, was going to include his take on the Allman Brothers' classic instrumental “For Elizabeth Reed” eyes lit up on the face of this exile coming home. It has been a good year for those of us who like our contemporary jazz with a touch or even a huge dose of rock – from the Rippingtons to Tizer and into the future, electric guitars and powerful drums are stepping out of the forbidden zone and back to center stage. I love it beyond belief. Russ Freeman used former Ozzy Osborne guitarist Zakk Wilde to lay down a blazing solo on the Rippingtons' new album and Russ fueled the fire with several more solos of his own and an orchestral progressive rock vibe that is all over Built To Last. Tizer's stunning new release features two generations of shred – Chieli Minucci and Tizer's long time guitarist Jeff Kollman. Mindi Abair is spending the summer on the road with Aerosmith and her own band was one of the first to wave the rock flag during their live gigs. Jeff Golub, who came out of rock as he backed up Billy Squier and Rod Stewart, is delivering sizzling blues solos all over the country. Smooth and relaxing? I think not. There is a place for that but now the other shades of the spectrum are coming into light. World music, fusion, rock, funk, trance/electronica, groove. Our music is no longer just sonic watercolor background shadings for wine tastings and retirement communities.

It's about time. The smooth jazz radio format basically gutted the life out of contemporary instrumental music. What we had in the 80's and early 90's was a growing genre of current music that was created by and for adults. If you didn't want to spend the rest of your life listening to “the songs you grew up with” or wanted something more than what your kids were listening to there was all this music, vocal and instrumental, that was just complex enough to be interesting but still accessible. It brought in everything from peaceful meditations to fired-up instrumental rock. Suddenly rules appeared. If you wanted to get on the radio the song had to be “smooth and relaxing.” Electric guitar solos were forbidden, as were “blaring horns,” kickin' bass runs, powerful drums and percussion, and anything more energetic than Kenny G's “Songbird”. We got stuck with short soprano sax vignettes that were the perfect accompaniment for doing stuff that didn't require much energy. The audience got restless. Sales actually started slipping during the late 90s, just a few years into the clench of the format vise and five years later the audience stated abandoning the radio stations the way the radio stations had abandoned the music. It is inconvenient to not have a radio station playing your music, but they weren't playing it anyway and we are reaping the benefits of that loss. Musicians are tailoring their music to the audience again instead of feeling pressure to play only short, soft songs. All the original influences are coming back – funk, rock, electronica, all types of international music, rhythm, tempo, excitement. Yes!

I grew up with rock and I got into instrumental music mostly because I loved the long instrumental jams on my rock albums. I lived just a few miles away from the house where the musicians that would become the Allman Brothers would gather and practice, and went to their Sunday afternoon outdoor concerts when I was a kid. I got lured in by Gato Barbieri on a PBS show before he got mellow (screaming sax) and then by everyone from the Allmans and Jeff Beck (rock guitars) to a beautiful obscure band called It's A Beautiful Day that used electric violin in an instrumental jam long before I heard Jean-Luc Ponty or Jerry Goodman (world music, eccentric instrumentation.) But it's not just about me. It's about generations.  Even when we talk about “older” audiences we are talking about people who did not grow up with easy listening music. When the WAVE debuted in 1987 a 50 year old person was 20 in 1957. Rock was starting to take over but the charts were still dominated by easy listening songs.  Their formative years musically are a lot different from someone who turns 50 in 2012. They grew up in the 70's and 80's. If you are 60 now you were a teenager when Hendrix, Joplin, the Allmans and the Doors were breaking new ground. All the things the powers-that-be at corporate radio told musicians and radio programmers to be afraid of are now a part of our musical DNA.

There is a place for smooth grooves, soprano sax and seductive ballads but there is a whole world beyond that. It is obvious from the crowd response when these musicians cut loose that the audience loves it and will joyously go with them when they move beyond the formula. Musicians are starting to get it and bring more diversity to what they record, whether they cut loose like Jeff Kashiwa did in a sax driven jazzy direction with a smooth vibe still present, or like the Tizer band and the Rippingtons who brought in world music, fusion, and progressive rock. The hard part now is getting music media to realize that exposing this music – playing it on internet and even terrestrial radio – will benefit them and bring in more fans, not scare them away. The safety zone has been entrenched for almost 20 years now. It's a total mindset. It doesn't work anymore but it's hard to disengage, even harder for younger artists and programmers because they grew up after smooth took over and don't often have the perspective that comes with hearing or creating music in the pre-smooth era. At this point in time, staying safe is more dangerous than taking some risks. Here's the bottom line. This music gives me goosebumps and makes my heart beat faster. I have seen it have the same effect on a lot of other people at live gigs too. It's time to let it rock!