k e v i n + f e l l e z s

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." - Karl Marx

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion (Duke University Press). The book is an analysis of the emergence, reception, and legacy of fusion, an experimental music that emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s as musicians combined jazz, rock, and funk. It is in the Refiguring American Music series co-edited by Ronald Radano and Josh Kun.

reviews

"What a pleasure it is to read this insightful, exciting, and extremely well listened analysis of fusion music. Kevin Fellezs suggests new ways of understanding the four artists he profiles, develops a productive framework for rethinking fusion, and helps us to understand why artists and audiences were stimulated by this music even as it was dismissed by purists. Birds of Fire is a major contribution to rethinking the place of fusion within jazz studies, as well as broader questions of genre across disciplines." - Sherrie Tucker, Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s, co-editor of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies
"More than a study of one underexplored market niche, Birds of Fire brilliantly illuminates how the market both inhibits and enables creativity, as well as how creative musicians challenge the music industry's narrowing and naturalizing of complicated, constructed, conflicted, and deeply contradictory social identities." - George Lipsitz, How Racism Takes Place; Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Focus of Place; Footsteps in the Dark: The Hidden Histories of Popular Music
"Fellezs succeeds in being both academic and a fan. He succeeds in bringing these four artists in from the margins while recognising their cross-cultural capital lies in their non-belonging to any mainstream discourse." - Andy Robson, Jazzwise
"Fellezs offers fascinating biographical detail and the kind of serious critical overview that the music has long deserved. His knowledge is impressive, his perspective thought-provoking, reflected in fascinating historical tidbits and observations. . . . [O]ne-of-a-kind, critical reading." - Ken Micallef, Downbeat
". . . Birds of Fire (named for the second album by the Mahavishnu Orchestra) is actually a relatively easy read that posits some fascinating theories about how and why fusion developed and why it was embraced by some, castigated by others." - Andrey Henkin, New York City Jazz Record
"Fellezs's first book, Birds of Fire demonstrates his agile mind and thoughtful approach to critical studies in music, sure to be followed by many more throughout his career. . . . With this book, Fellezs has forged a path for fusion (and other jazz-related music previously dismissed as "simply commercial") to be discussed with academic rigor." - Alex Rodriguez, Ethnomusicology Review

For more information, and to order Birds of Fire directly from Duke University Press, please visit http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?productid=16310

selected articles

emergency! race and genre in tony williams's lifetime
deracinated flower: toshiko akiyoshi's 'trace in jazz history'

interviews

interview with Karl Hagstrom Miller on the International Association for the Study of Popular Music - US Branch (IASPM-US) website
audio interview with Matthew Smith-Lahrman on New Books in Pop Music

contact info

k e v i n f e l l e z s
k e v i n @ f j a z . c o m