Swinging Jazz is live from Swinging London© in '67, with Humphrey Littleton genially introducing a couple of different small jazz combos featuring "Johnny" McLaughlin. Jazz applause!
Redevotion is a re-shuffle of the anguished darkside Devotion, the bizarro My Goal's Beyond, with the kind of granular editing (and cover remix) that'll only be noticed by three people worldwide, and cared about by fewer. Where's my Quaalude, dude?
The live Between Nothingness And Eternity has a new cover and is the massively extended 2011 remaster, and fantastic. Sometimes, more is more.
Dream is the original Mahavishnu Orchestra line-up's mysterious third studio album, which has never been given the label respect it deserves. It got lost/aborted in the acrimonious split of the band, with Johnny being true to his stereotype and stubbornly refusing his musicians composing credits/royalties. Maybe it needs some studio sweetening. Maybe Rick Laird's number isn't quite there yet. It's still a good album, and now it has a good cover. Broken dream.
I'm always, maybe wrongly, suspicious of people who dress up in white clothes unless they're hospital workers.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I was inspired by the cover pics of Love Devotion Surrender, hard to believe that now but anyway, back then I bought a pair of white denim flares and was actually surprised at the level of ridicule and abuse they triggered from my biker-hippy mates. By the end of the first day I wore them in their company, my pristine jeans had ‘accidentally’ acquired stains of mud, grass, egg, ketchup, beer, and oil. Fair enough. Buying Love Devotion Surrender wasn’t a great idea either.
DeleteSome people pay extra for that.
DeleteIt's okay if you're Colonel Sanders.
Deletewhere at the link, you put,mr.number one?
DeleteDear Anonymous - the link for these hot biscuits will be posted as soon as I deal with the tardigrade infestation in my hard drive.
DeleteJohnny?!? Lol! Never got to see the Orchestra, but got to see "Johnny" a couple of times. While I understand that the guy can be "difficult", he has some unreal skills.
ReplyDeleteI saw th' Orkestry in '74.
Deletethat tour with Jeff Beck!
DeleteBTw - its not white - its "blanc."
ReplyDeleteHe's always Mel to me!
Delete"That's all folks!!!"
DeleteNot what like is to there? (End of first para). Where's Ed, possibly been sacked? - or is this west country slang?
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a dyslexic typo. I swear to dog.
DeleteThat first Mahavishnu Orchestra album was a game-changer. Very few albums blew me away like that one. It made all the prog musicians look like stumbling amateurs in comparison. And it was so brilliant you didn't even notice it was entirely instrumental. I'm sure Rick Laird is (was) a technically superb bass player, but he's very difficult to hear most of the time. If you try to follow his lines, it's very hard not to be distracted by something fantastic happening somewhere else. He's the only non-flashy player in the band.
ReplyDeleteI like Rick on Soft Focus.
DeleteAn' here, comin' at yez thru th' magic of electric, is Soft Focus
DeleteI had a similar reaction to their appearance on BBC TV not long after the album release ( it’s on Youtube). I hadnt heard the album at the time, I couldn’t categorise or process what I was watching, had never seen or heard anything like it. A band calling itself an orchestra, the visual impact of a twin neck guitar, a violin, an astonishing drummer. And Johnny Mac all in white. It was literally amazing.
DeleteI haven't often looked forward to an album like Birds Of Fire, which I bought on import (at huge expense). My first reaction was one of slight disappointment, and although many rate it highly, even higher than the first, it still slides into second place for me - maybe even behind Visions Of The Emerald Beyond. If that album had been the first,Billy Cobham would have been seen as Michael Walden's equal, at least, and Jan Hammer as an improvement over Gayle Moran, but I wonder how well Jerry Goodman would have been welcomed as a replacement for Jean-Luc Ponty, Rick Laird for Ralph Armstrong?
DeleteI bought Birds of Fire before Inner Mounting Flame cos by the time I’d scraped together the cash to go and buy Inner, my local record shop had no copy but had Birds as a brand new release. And it was indeed something of a disappointment based on my memory of that TV appearance. But I soon grew to love it and now make no distinction between those first 2 LPs. And you’re right about Rick n Jerry facing very stiff competition from the Visions boys, but Billy and Jan are an irreplaceable part of the in-yer-face impact of the band. Jan made keys cool for many of us guitarplayers, his solos were actually closer to my rock-blues guitar-tuned ears than much of Johnny Mac’s frenzied jazz chaos.
DeleteOkay!
ReplyDeleteOn the ball as usual, thanks!
ReplyDeleteMy attention span for this stuff makes me forget how quickly I get bored with the Dead. The lack of bad singing on lame cover material must have something to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThe Dead's version of Hey Jude is excruciating. Nearly as bad as the original.
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