WOW! It's nice to see that there's some other folks in here that listen to jazz fusion as well as the usual genres we talk about here. I was begining to think that there were only a few of us. I've always thought that fusion and prog are 2 sides of the same coin. Anyways, in that vein (jazz fusion, since most of the others are listing a lot of the same metal bands that I would post) I could recommend some artists, that would be a change of pace from the various kinds of metal and rock that you listen to and haven't been listed already. These are some off the top of my head. If you're interested in more, or jazz players that play instruments other than bass or guitar, let me know.
John McLaughlin - He was in Mahavishnu, so you'll be familiar with him.
Stanley Clarke - I found out about John McLaughlin through him. A bass legend that has played with the best and scored plenty of movies.
Jaco Pastorius - Self proclaimed "World's Greatest Bass Player" (with
GOOD reason)! An influence on many bassists after him. He's dead now, but listening to his son Felix play around here locally, in the group Way of the Groove, is the next best thing!
Victor Wooten - I'd pretty much say that he's the greatest bass player now. He tears it up on the bass! Your jaw
will drop! He has played with
Bela Fleck (the jazz banjoist).
Tribal Tech - Pretty heavy and weird for a jazz fusion band.
Christian McBride - You may have heard of him through some of the famous people he's played bass for.
John Pattitucci - Does lots of classical and latin music too. Played with Chick Corea.
Charlie Hunter/Garage a Trois - this will really change it up for you...he plays an 8 string guitar (3 bass strings and 5 guitar strings) to be able to play bass and lead or rhythmn guitar at the same time. In fact one solo album he did with only a percussionist and it was some of his best stuff.
If you want something even more different, sometimes when I watch BET Jazz, I find jazz artists, groups or collaborations that blow my mind and redefine what jazz can be. I think that it was on Thanksgiving or the weekend before that, I saw Chick Corea, Bela Fleck and Bobby McFerrin play together. That was something else!
"And now for something completely different"
, that's not jazz fusion, there's always
Primus and
Les Claypool's other projects too. Also the progressive/avant guard rock group
King Crimson. You've probably already heard of theese bands, but it's hard to get more different than that!
) and -- just recently -- Devin Townsend. 
