Whenever a jazz artist turns to rock, R&B or pop, jazz's hardcore purists are bound to cry "sellout." In the 1970s, a number of talented jazz improvisers increased their sales considerably by embracing R&B, including George Benson, George Duke, Patrice Rushen, Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd. Those artists experienced scathing attacks by jazz critics when, in the mid-1970s, they moved to jazz-funk, which was basically soul, funk and disco with jazz overtones.
Chris Brown, "It was because the most danceable of these Jazz Fusion recordings contained Funk Rhythms, that the music became known within the UK as JazzFunk. This term is generally used in the UK, to describe all the different styles of what is really Jazz/Fusion music."
