Ayler’s New Grass pioneered soul-rock fusion before Bitches Brew

Evidence

Christgau went on to praise Ayler’s controversial new LP New Grass, an Impulse! release that, over a year before Miles Davis released his rock-fusion LP Bitches Brew, employed a soul-singing chorus and a propulsive beat, not to mention “the funky tenor breaks that filled out early R&B.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1351

Categorization

• XREF: Another instance of the book’s pattern of probing canonical origin dates for rock/counterculture — relevant to how the ‘Everything Is Now’ simultaneity thesis plays out in music.