The entire fusion/ jazz dichotomy has always been a bit of a spurious one. Sure, there are acts that are very clearly fusion, such as Weather Report, or Tribal Tech, and those that are very obviously acoustic jazz, such as, well, any of the huge variety of famous and unknown, creative and cookie-cutter bands that feature double bass, drums, piano and one or two horns. However, where many jazz fans look at history and see Miles Davis summoning fusion from the ether around 1967, there were precedents.