On How William Blake Inspired Jazz Fusion (Day Seven)

Today's featured article on Wikipedia is on Song of Innocence, "the debut album of American composer and producer David Axelrod, released in October 1968 by Capitol Records." Due to the "experimental climate of popular music at the time," particularly "following in the wake of the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," Axelrod set out to compose this "album as a suite-like tone poem based on Songs of Innocence, a 1789 illustrated collection of poems by William Blake." 


As one of many of concept albums from the late 1960s, "Song of Innocence combines jazz elements with impressionistic musical figures and hard rock guitar solos. Its music also incorporates funk, rock, theatre, and pop styles. Music journalists categorized the album as jazz-rock, baroque pop, and psychedelic R&B." 

As well, "[a]ccording to music journalist Zaid Mudhaffer, the term 'jazz fusion' was coined in a review of the album when it was released." 

Even though considered by some critics as "more art pop than jazz," Axelrod, "who had produced bebop albums before working for Capitol, asserted that jazz played a crucial role in the music: 'For years, all I did was jazz. When I first got in the record business, I was so into jazz that I had never heard Elvis Presley. I still probably listen to jazz more than anything else.'"

In 1969, Axelrod released another Blake-inspired album, "Songs of Experience, which adapted Gunther Schuller's third stream concept to baroque orchestrations and rock, pop, and R&B rhythms and melodies."  As can be easily concluded, Axelrod is "a self-professed 'Blake freak.'"