Ethno Jazz

192 profiles tagged Ethno Jazz, A-Z.

Ethno jazz, also called world jazz, is a broad umbrella term for jazz that incorporates traditional musical elements -- melodies, instruments, or rhythms -- from a specific non-Western culture, with roots in fusions dating to the 1950s and 1960s such as Afro-Cuban jazz and John Coltrane's engagement with Indian and African music. Its boundaries are notably fuzzy: it overlaps heavily with jazz fusion and world music more generally, and is often applied loosely rather than denoting one consistent sound. Representative artists span from Coltrane and Don Cherry to later ensembles built around a specific regional folk tradition combined with jazz improvisation.