Todd Richmond is a bass player who played with Simpleflower and he's a fellow Pelican. He's very talented, I might add...

Never heard of him...:D

What about:
Ronny Jordan
Paul Hardcastle \ Jazzmasters Collection
Groove Collective
Braxton Brothers
Nuyorican Soul
Some George Benson
Mark Farina
I can go on and on

Watch it, sailor! I don't need nostatic from you! ;)

Randy

How about the recently departed Razor Lips himself...

Maynard Fergusen?

Not fusion, but an amazing horn player.

Micah

good jazz fusion is an oxymoron :p

Thanks for the props. But I hear that Simpleflower bassist is a little off his rocker if you know what I mean...

Ok, I'll soften my stance a bit. I like some fusion but it can get old. I had a casual gig at Cantor's about 6 months back that was a "fusion" thing (I knew the drummer from another casual). Incredibly boring gig...guitar player just wanting to shred over the same groove ad naseum. And normally on a "jazz" casual, especially a trio situation, the bass and drums take a solo on almost every tune, or at least trade fours. Not this one...guitar player just kept playing as many notes per minute as he could...

The seminal works have been mentioned, except for *****es Brew (Miles). I've never really cared for Metheney. Headhunters is a classic, and you could also check out Tribal Tech, Billy Cobham, and Jack Bruce (post Cream) and of course Jeff Beck. Marcus Miller is pretty amazing too...his last album (Silver Rain) has some gems including covers of Frankenstein, Power of Soul, Boogie on Raggai Woman, and Moonlight Sonata.

I cannot believe that nobody mentioned Mahavishnu Orchestra, one of the seminal bands of the fusion movement.

BTW I found this thread by searching for "rocker arm groove."

Most anything recorded by or produced by Marcus Miller... some of his stuff w/ David Sanborn is worth a listen.

David Spinoza guitar stuff, but its mostly out of print.

John McLaughlin is great and a favorite of mine...
Not a big fan of Scofield.... plays same stuff over and over and lost me
the night he played a lame 1 hour set in AA for $30 cover charge.
But thats just me...

Pick up some Wes Montgomery to see where it all began

Candy Dulfer just played here in Phoenix. Very nice sounds.

Been listening to jazz for eons and still cannot get enough of it...

I can recommend a trio of discs from an independant label called Tone Center

Guitar Supreme
Fusion for Miles -A B1tchin Brew
Vision of an Inner Mounting Apocolypse (a piss take Im sure, compositions by McLaughlin)

Feature people like Eric Johnson, Warren Haynes, Jeff Richman, Steve Lukather, frank Gamabale, Pat Martino.

Great fusion compilation records, ball tearers.

I lean more to the afrobeat -

I love the syncopation.

Feta Kuli and less so, his son Femi are my weapons of choice for a layback.