Pitching a 33 1/3 Genre Book

Matthew Reed Baker takes over the 33 1/3 blog this week with a deep-dive into his upcoming addition to the Genre series: 1970s Jazz Fusion. Today Matthew discusses what went into his initial Genre book proposal.

Interested in writing for the Genre: A 33 1/3 series? Find out how to submit your proposal here.

by Matthew Reed Baker

As a writer and editor who has worked almost exclusively in magazines since the mid-1990s, I had long dreamed to write a book about music.

Like many people reading this blog, I was an instant fan of the 33 ⅓ book series when it was first introduced. I mean, we all have wanted to read deep dives into our favorite albums, and here were dozens of books doing exactly that, written by talented authors all brimming with the same passion that I had for the music. It’s been so long since I bought my first 33 ⅓ book, and I have since collected so many of them, covering a wide range of artists, from The Modern Lovers to Aphex Twin to Stevie Wonder to, yes, Miles Davis with his jazz fusion colossus Bitches Brew. Naturally then, my dream was to write one of these.

When Bloomsbury and 33 ⅓ introduced the Genre books, I was excited as a reader for all the same reasons as my love for the flagship series, but even more so, because I could write about many albums and artists. When a call for proposals came around, I sat down, thought hard about what genres I loved.

Fortunately, the genre at the top of the list was jazz fusion and it was still available.

When I thought about how much I’ve known about this music and how much this music has moved me for so long, the choice was completely obvious. My initial concept was to write about the earliest glimmers of jazz fusion in the 1960s and take the subject all the way to present day, but instead I followed the advice of 33 ⅓’s website and limited it to the 1970s. As this was the decade when the genre first explored all its possibilities and gained its greatest mainstream commercial success, limiting the scope was an easy call and quite a relief, frankly.

I keep a notebook with me at all times, so during spare moments I jotted down my thoughts on artists and albums I wanted to cover. And even though I had limited my scope to the 1970s, I realized I wanted to expand the scope of how jazz fusion influenced music beyond jazz—music like hip hop, electronica, and adventurous alternative rock that has always been held in higher regard than the so-called terminally uncool jazz fusion.

And soon enough my ideas coalesced into a mission to celebrate the artistic explosion and legacy of 1970s jazz fusion in writing, and that mission led to a very clear table of contents.

It began as a manifesto in praise of the genre, kicked off with a chapter about Miles Davis, then explored the work of Miles’s protégés, who themselves became jazz fusion stars: the founders of Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, and so on.

Then I just wanted to explore the other themes that come up whenever jazz fusion is mentioned: its electricity, its commercialism, its crowd-pleasing nature, its role in shaping specific pioneering record labels, its crossover success into soul and pop, and rock and soul musicians who explored jazz themselves.

The epilogue would then let me hint at what the larger book would have been, consolidating jazz fusion’s influence into the 1980s to present day. Once the ideas were there, I put the table of contents on paper in less than an hour, and it’s almost exactly like the one you’ll find in the book today. It’s proof that if you let your thinking brew in the mind for long enough, concrete plans can flow forward with surprising speed.

And then, frankly, I procrastinated. Ideas are one thing, writing is another. It was midsummer in New England, which is a glorious time and place to be outside kayaking in lakes, hiking in woods, and swimming at beaches, especially if you have two active kids.

Even more, an old insecurity set back in: Do I care too much about this music to write about it in a way that engages anybody besides myself? Where do I even begin with the writing sample?

I decided the 33 ⅓ editors would rather see how I’d handle a chapter in the middle of the book, rather than a possible intro. Since I had a favorite quote of Weather Report’s Joe Zawinul in my head, I just jumped in and wrote 2,600 words about that band, not just its music, but also about the colorful lives and working habits of its most famous band members: Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, and Jaco Pastorius.

As I was running out of time, I didn’t have the luxury of sweating over every word. I’ve explored the history of the band for years, so I knew exactly where to find the information I needed, and the structure of the chapter just came naturally. In fact, I wrote so much so quickly that I had to cut the chapter short (per the proposal guidelines) just as Pastorius was about the join the band and shake up jazz fusion forever…I left the chapter hanging like a cliffhanger!

Once I had the table of contents and the chapter sample, the rest of the proposal was easy, because 33 ⅓ had given such clear directions, and because now I felt I knew what this book was. And I knew that by focusing on the artists as people and on their albums as cultural touchstones, I would work to legitimize 1970s jazz fusion as a genre and also offer engaging stories and descriptions to bring in a larger audience than jazz fans.

By the time I was done, I had a 20-page document, which I proofread several times and then emailed before I could think any more about it, and the good news came a few months later: My proposal for 1970s Jazz Fusion was accepted, and I am completely grateful, because it has been a joy to devote a chunk of life to creating this book.

Want an even closer look? Read an excerpt from the introduction of 1970s Jazz Fusion.