Jazz Funk
Jazz funk is a style that sets jazz solos and harmony over the heavy, danceable grooves of funk.
It developed in the United States in the early 1970s, with electric piano, clavinet, synthesizers, electric bass and tight drums carrying a strong backbeat. Tunes are usually built on a repeating groove with room for improvised solos, and many have little or no singing. Compared with jazz fusion, jazz funk is simpler, groovier and aimed more at dancers, and its records were later sampled widely in hip hop.
Artists it is known for: Herbie Hancock, Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd.
- Family
- Jazz & Blues
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, early 1970s
- Also called
- jazz-funk
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,700 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have jazz funk among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Jazz Funk artists
Earth, Wind & Fire
Masayoshi Takanaka
CASIOPEA
Cortex
Arthur Verocai
George BensonThe jazz funk artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.