Lock up Your Daughters

[l-to-r: Billy Cobham, John McLaughlin, Jan Hammer, Rick Laird, Jerry Goodman]

Birds of Fire
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
Birds of Fire
CBS : 1973
[Listen] [Buy]

Noonward Race
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Inner Mounting Flame
Columbia : 1971
[Listen] [Buy]

Meeting of the Spirits
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Inner Mounting Flame
Columbia : 1971
[Listen] [Buy]

Dawn
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Inner Mounting Flame
Columbia : 1971
[Listen] [Buy]

Dream [recorded June 25-29, 1973]
Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Lost Trident Sessions
Columbia : 1999
[Listen] [Buy]

John McLaughlin plays guitar like no other. Sure, you can have a soft spot for Hendrix or J. Beck or Clapton or Trucks or Scofield or Santana or someone else, but McLaughlin is the end of the line. This soft-spoken, English-born [born in the same Yorkshire town of Doncaster as my parents], Hindu-convert guitarist is the master of his domain, and I can only sit and listen with awe at his licks. They’re an acquired taste, a slow burn for those who like the more immediate payoff of the perfect, melodically-concise 4-bar blues fill or the balls and panache of heavy metal riffs [the fret dancers], but well worth the wait.

Unfolding over the course of long compositions, his main guitar verse lines are intricate enough, but considering the evolution of these tracks into jazz-fusion chaos, whereby he’ll assault his 12-string axe with unbridled enthusiasm, extracting as many notes as possible out of the frenzied speed of his playing. Sixteenths are mere child’s play, especially when his drummer and rhythmic equal, Billy Cobham [surely in my top 3 drummers all-time], is pounding out an equally-schizophrenic progression on his kit.

The whole band were a collection of freaks, men with rubber joints who could withstand the eclectic pace of the Mahavishnu sound. Gliding and sliding through intricate heads and patterns, skipping across several challenging, unorthodox time signatures within the same song, the group played at a frantic level in every each of their 3 incarnations.

My personal favourite was the original lineup, a truly diverse outfit: McLaughlin [England] on guitars, Cobham [Panama] on drums, Jerry Goodman [USA] on violin, Rick Laird [Ireland] on bass, and Jan Hammer [Czech Republic] on keyboards. Their music, although perhaps somewhat dated nowadays due to that unmistakable synth sound [not to mention the whole spacy jazz-rock fusion orientation, in my opinion one that peaked out in the 70s – more on that in a future post, I reckon], was complex and challenging, and although perhaps harder to listen to than most other genres [one of the major criticisms by jazz purists], it is hard not to appreciate them for what they were.

I selected these tracks to hopefully give a good representation of them at their furthest: none of their calmer, more serene and peaceful songs make the cut, but instead, several longer, full-on chunks of sound lifted from the minds and fingers of five extremely skilled musicians. McLaughlin is the field marshal, and his compositions cull from jazz, rock, funk and Eastern rhythms.

The result is glorious.

Particular moments of “Oh my G-d, that is fucking perfect”

- [2:32] in “Dawn”
The cymbal-heavy tension finally breaks through into funkier ground at the perfect moment, and Cobham connects with Laird on a slick groove. Goodman obliges with a nasty little violin excursion from the holy vibe of the first two minutes, making you almost feel naughty for listening. The whole thing settles back down at [4:08] into its original, mournful, ethereal tone, and you wonder what just happened for the past 90 seconds. This track opens the album with intent, and this emotional moment sets the tone with force.

- [1:05] in “Birds of Fire”
John McLaughlin kicks the door down with the main head, his wailing guitar echoing loudly high above the rest of the mix, like some furious Norse god raining thunder and lightning down from Valhalla. Up to that point, the pressure had been slowly cranking higher and higher, and the payoff is enough to make you drop yr beer and jump out of yr chair. It stretches higher into the stratosphere as his solo continues, squeaking higher and higher, disappearing into the atmosphere as his bandmates struggle to match the intensity. After a couple of minutes, you might need a towel to cool off. The effect is intoxicating. This is what jazz-rock fusion is all about.

- [5:10] in "Dream"
After a gentle preamble, the band hits a hard-nosed pocket of fuzzed-out funk after several heavy reiterations of the song's head. At Cobham's command, thanks to a disgusting call-to-attention drum roll, the band reins in and provides heavy noise. McLaughlin lays down a gritty bluesy riff, undercut by Laird's bassline, and the solos begin anew. This one definitely requires a post-listen shower.

It seems only appropriate that Cobham and McLaughlin met while performing and recording with Miles Davis. As if there wasn’t enough magic in their music already.

While writing this, I decided that there will be a couple more jazz-rock fusion posts in the near-ish future. I’m not done with it yet, but today was a heavy Mahavishnu day [try riding a bike into the “forest” for a couple of hours with some of this on rotation], and there will be some more before Thanksgiving.

But, in the meantime, give these an honest shot. They may lack the perfect brevity of hip-hop beats, or the swift serenade of original soul, but they’re perfect in their own way.

John McLaughlin is the king of the guitar in my mind, but I’d be curious to know who you all value out there as the axe-master to rule all others. Let me know in the comments – there needs to be more guitar-heavy posts around here from time to time, so if I can oblige with providing some of the greats, why settle for less?