A sub-genre of jazz music characterised by a strong back beat, electrified sounds and the presence of the first electronic analogue synthesizers. The integration of funk, soul and R&B music and styles into jazz resulted in the creation of a genre whose spectrum is quite wide and ranges from strong jazz improvisation to soul, funk or disco with jazz arrangements, jazz riffs and solos, and sometimes soul vocals.

Jazz-funk is a mostly American genre, where it was popular throughout the 1970s and the early 1980s, but it also achieved noted appeal on the club circuit in the UK during the mid 1970s. Other possible names for this genre include soul jazz and jazz fusion, but neither entirely overlap with jazz-funk.

At its conception, the jazz-funk genre was occasionally looked down upon by jazz hard-liners as a sell-out, or 'jazz for the dancehalls'. It was presumed not intellectual or elite enough, which led to controversy about the music crossing over, but it was making jazz much more popular and mainstream, as evidenced by Donald Byrd's Blackbyrd album. The jazz-funk (as well as a proportion of the jazz) community absorbed the street sound of the funk rhythm, which gave the genre a danceable rhythm and gained influences from the electronic sound of fusion.

The 1970s included many original stylistic creations and the jazz-funk genre was representative of this movement. Artists that explored jazz-funk include George Benson, Billy Cobham, Bob James and Lee Ritenour.