The relaxation of orthodoxy simultaneous with post-punk in London and New York led on to a new appreciation for jazz. In London, the Pop Group started to mix free jazz, with dub reggae, into their brand of punk rock. In NYC, No Wave took direct inspiration from both free jazz and punk. Examples of this style include Lydia Lunch's Queen of Siam, the work of James Chance and the Contortions, who mixed Soul with free jazz and punk, Grey , and the Lounge Lizards, who were the 1st group to refer to themselves as "punk jazz". John Zorn started to make note of the focus on speed and dissonance that was becoming commonplace in punk music and incorporated this into free jazz. This commenced in 1986 with the album Spy vs. Spy, a collection of Ornette Coleman tunes done in the up to date thrashcore style. The same year, Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brtzmann, Bill Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson recorded the 1st album under the name Last Exit, a likewise assertive mix of trounce and free jazz. These developments are the origins of jazzcore, the fusion of free jazz with hardcore punk.

In the 1990s, punk jazz and jazzcore started to reflect the augmenting cognizance of components of extraordinary metal ( especially beat metal and death metal ) in hardcore punk.A new style of "metallic jazzcore" was developed by Iceburn, from Salt Lake Town , and Candiria, from NY City, though expected by Exposed Town and Discomfort Killer. This bias also takes inspiration from jazz inflections in technical death metal ,eg the work of Cynic and non-believer.