Which member of Toto is most important to jazz

 

but they are FAAAR more related to jazz then metal, they have a hard edge on some songs but ther basic influence are from jazz and funk, they are most of them schooled and trained session musicians who are well verced in all genres, they can swip/swich styles in seconds, and sounds as good/professional when they play rock as when they play fusion, few band are as flexible as Toto when it comes to go infor a sound. but the mater of fact the original lineupp of Toto are basicly a jazz/funk/soul trained band, and most of their songs have a funky flare in the backbones of their songs, they are as groovy as Earth Wind and Fire, Steely Dan and even James Brown, so I agree they are NOT  metal influenced band (exept the guitarist Steve Lukather who is an inovator of metal style guitar technice and playing, who gives Toto the harder edge), all the others are full on jazz musicians, Jeff Porcaro is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 70s and 80s, together with Gadd and Colaiuta they have influenced many of the modern jazz style drummers, like Gavin Harrison and the likes,  David Paich is the son of the legendary jazz producer Marty Paich, he have literly have had Coltraine, Miles, Fats Domino, Telonius Monk, and all the jazz greats in the livingroom of his house, or as close friends to the family, and his piano style is jazz, with flavours of classical, funk, country and gospel,)

 

yes they are mostly known as a AOR band but that is just half of the truth, they have played so many styles of music that music crittics have givve up labeling them, it is just to hard to pin them down in one caskin they are just to all-over-the-place,  but as a core they are most certainly a jazz/funk based band allways have and allways will be,  it is in theyr DNA...

 

but as any professional band they know how to rock out, they are as confortable on stage as in the studio, so that gives them more proe and sought after, they were a really good and coocking live band and a solid and tight as glue in the studio, they are professionalist, and they work their asses of in the studio, in the 80s they were on so many records spanning from Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Lionell Richie, Herbie Hancock, Chicago, Steely Dan, Boz Scaggs, Michael Jackson,