Fusion - Any Recommendations?

a top 10 list:

passport: hand-made or infinity machine or cross-collateral (3 classics of their 20 plus albums)

weather report: sweetnighter or i sing the body electric (out there)

miles davis: in a silent way (it qualifies);honorable mention-hall of fame

friendship: that is the album & group name--great!--a top line-up together for this one album--has ernie watts on sax, played with the stones, it's a winner.

the section: fork it over: a rare fusion album by the band that backs jackson brown & james taylor...it's great (they put out two studio albums and one live one; fork it over is the best of the bunch)

too much thinking...enjoy...brad

best italian fusion group--you are right-they have their own flavor--check out 'Goblin'

I second Klaus Doldinger and Passport. Every thing they have done is exceptional,I have them all on Vinyl. Iguacu,Earthborn,Ataraxia are some of my favorites. I prefer his recordings that were in the middle of their catalog. I would reccommend Earthborn because on this album klaus finaly lets his sax back into the front of the music where the moog had seemed to replace his chops in previous records of this period.

synthfreek - it's ok that people are just listing random jazz fusion bands - that's what i was looking for. i wouldn't expect anyone else to be like Area. they're pretty unique. the fact that they have high left-win socialist and/or communist lyrics means almost nothing to me anyway since they sing in Italian, but it sure SOUNDS cool...

If you dig the avant tendencies of Area, alot of the recommendations so far will seem pretty milktoast and pedestrian. If you want high quality mind altering rock influenced instrumental (or mostly instrumental music) that can gobble up alot of brain cells, there's moutains of it available. You may want to dig through some old Agon music threads for some artist lists... here's quick grab of 10 narcotic favorites to help scratch the surface, (not ranking any of em' ... lots of stuff not mentioned is also real spiff):
Tipographica (1st)
Fermata (1st two are usually on one disc)
Univers Zero (Hard Quest)
Ruins (Burning Stone or Hyderomastgroningem)
Massacre (Killing Time, other three are great too)
Lucas Niggli Zoom (Spawn Of Speed)
Sonny Sharrock (Seize The Rainbow)
ADD Trio (Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat)
Dr. Nerve (Skin)
Hamster Theatre (Mr. Personality/Quasi Day Room)

If you wanted to stay w/ Italy Check out:
Apoteosi
Arti + Mestieri (1st two)
Banco (early stuff)
Balletto di Bronzo (YS)
Bella Band
Deus ex Machina
DFA
Garybaldi (Astrolabio)
Il Volo (Essre Non Essre)
New Trolls (UT)
Nova (1st three)
Osanna
Perigeo (early stuff)
PFM (early stuff),
Zu (How To Raise An Ox).
Also check out Wayside Music (they have a great on line catalog). Same goes for Squidco (Phil Zampino) and Lasers Edge (Ken Golden).