In this essay I'm going to tell about the music style called jazz metal. As we figure out from the name of this style, it combines features of jazz and metal, inheriting the complexity of rhythms and the tendency to improvise from jazz (especially modal jazz) and the sound and instruments of death metal music.
The pioneers in this field was the band Atheist, hailing from Florida. They were founded in 1984 by vocalist and guitarist Kelly Shaefer and drummer Steve Flynn and started as a typical thrash metal band. Their lineup shuffled several times until finally in 1988 they signed a contract with Mean Machine Records and recorded their first album, "Piece Of Time". When this record label bankrupted, Active Records picked up the rights for the album.
"Piece of Time" was a new word in the metal scene, and not all the critics came to understanding it. After the release, tours of America, Canada and Europe followed. When the band was returning from the tour in 1991, they suffered a horrible car crash, in which their bass player Roger Patterson died. This was a heavy struck for Atheist, but nevertheless they kept moving forward and recorded a follow-up featuring the bassist of technical metal band Cynic, Tony Choy. It was called "Unquestionable Presence" and could serve as a threnody for Patterson. With this album Atheist established a place for themselves in the American metal scene. Later Shaefer dedicated more of his time to his side project Neurotica. But according to the contract with Active Records, Atheist had to release one more album. So they recorded "Elements" in 1993, which serves as an appreciated jazz metal model even nowadays. After this, Atheist disbanded. Here I'm going to focus mostly on their last album because it represents the style better than the first two.
I left the most interesting fact about Atheist for the conclusion. After thirteen years, in 2006, the band regrouped to perform their old compositions live on several festivals. And later in August 2008, Shaefer announced that Atheist is going to record a new album. Nobody knows what will it sound like after a 16-year break. I hope Atheist won't follow the experience of their fellow technical metal band, Cynic, which had a similar biography. They released an album recently, and it doesn't sound like jazz metal at all.
Mike DaRonco, Ed Rivadavia. "Allmusic - Biography - Atheist". Allmusic. http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_%28band%29.
http://officialatheist.com
