Mahavishnu Orchestra C/D/S/D

"Agree that he holds that group together, but Narada Michael Walden was a solid replacement. So crazy that he became this slick hitmaker."

i'm still a little flabbergasted whenever i realize that michael tilson thomas was the guy who did the orchestral stuff on "apocalypse" (and it wasn't very good...)

Didn't expect to get into Between Nothingness & Eternity at all but I enjoyed more of it than I thought I would. Cant be bothered with getting into the rest of it right now, so I'm shelving it for now. Didn't think this was so highly thought of.

I thought one of the riffs sounded a hell of a lot like Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" but I guess people who know better would have made a deal of that if it really did have much resemblance.

I liked Apocalypse. Not the whole way through but the highlights are great. Last track has a kind of "You And I" feeling and the soloing at the big climax is fantastic.

But "Smile Of The Beyond" is just gorgeous. Check out this live version with a far more energetic middle portion and added drum solo with good drumming faces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjM-UQ0zVUU

That was worth waking up to.

dude can shred

hats for sporting the spiritual SG double neck look

That right there is a spiritual custom Ibanez.

aah, I see!

Visions of the Emerald Beyond is really nice

Narada Michael Walden has had a pretty interesting career starting with Mahavishnu with Aretha (Who's Zoomin Who) and Whitney Houston and many others. From the Ashram to Malibu I would suppose.

his drumming on a few songs on Fripp's "Exposure" is ferocious. NYC and Breathless are the two best songs on the album

You follow Billy Cobham, you better be able to deliver it. Those guys are/were so good, they are like superheroes.

Birds of Fire- I think it's their best, Jan Hammer expands with Moog (okay, maybe a tad cheesy, but I love it anyway)...Generally better music, IMO.

Need to poll Birds against all the other titular objects Of Fire at some point (Chariots of Fire, Wheels of Fire etc) to determine which one is the most awesome.

It could be called 'POLL of Fire'

Rhapsody of Fire
In the Line of Fire

Yeah, there's lots. I just worry that some ppl will miss the point and vote for the music they prefer.

Was McLaughlin the first real shredder?

He was probably the most technically accomplished and polished player in rock up to that time.

GW In your opinion, who was the first shredder?

SATRIANI That’s a good one. When you say “shredder,” I would say it’s probably a guy who’s not a great writer but yet can play really well. So that first wave of rock guitarists—people like Hendrix and Page and Beck and Clapton—they weren’t shredders. The fusion guys—Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth—were doing their own trip; they were fusion guys. So you can put them in another bag. I see shred as a metal thing—someone who listens to Di Meola, who loves the freak-out of Hendrix and the I’ll-do-whatever-I-want nature of Page, and who innocently brought it into a new era. I’m hard pressed to name that person who just played something so simple but really overdid it. [pauses] It might be Alvin Lee from Ten Years After.

( https://www.guitarworld.com/features/joe-satriani-shred-ache )

That super trill that McLaughlin plays going into some of those speedy runs sends signals up my spine. It's got an effect like sometimes when they play a filtertwist on a really distorted TB-303 in acid music.

What's an example you have in mind?

Oh the big one that has always raised neck hairs was that first run after the riff on "Meeting of the Spirits". His picking is just so super speedy and clean. It's like Dick Dale on steroids. There are plenty of that double picking on the live record, especially on "Dreams". JM does some crazy picking matching the high speed tabla runs on acoustic with Shakti.

As my garage band mind understands, some of this is McLaughlin doing his take on 'sheets of sound' by Coltrane using altered pentatonics. The one I came across was using the minor pentatonic raising the 5th up to the 6th

Ah yeah, those are magnificent.

Sounds like that’s a mode of mixolydian pentatonic, If you start from the 4th. Like the unison lines on Eternity’s Breath.

Did McLaughlin invent shredding?

The one I came across was using the minor pentatonic raising the 5th up to the 6th

I'm trying to parse this: so a minor pentatonic would be A - C - D - E - G, raising the 5th would make the E an F, so you'd just be using a different pentatonic scale (F - G - A - C - D, but favouring the A as a tonic)?

I think it was proven on another thread that Alvin Lee invented shredding, but McLaughlin sure did it faster and more accurately.

I always get Alvin Lee, Albert Lee, Albert King, and Albert Collins confused.

Of course. Surely that has come up before on some other threads

I saw one of them on The Everly Brothers tribute this weekend. Can’t be 100% sure, think it was Albert.

Albert Lee, that is.

Dick Dale invented shredding.

GW In your opinion, who was the first shredder?

SATRIANI That’s a good one. When you say “shredder,” I would say it’s probably a guy who’s not a great writer but yet can play really well. So that first wave of rock guitarists—people like Hendrix and Page and Beck and Clapton—they weren’t shredders. The fusion guys—Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin and Allan Holdsworth—were doing their own trip; they were fusion guys. So you can put them in another bag. I see shred as a metal thing—someone who listens to Di Meola, who loves the freak-out of Hendrix and the I’ll-do-whatever-I-want nature of Page, and who innocently brought it into a new era. I’m hard pressed to name that person who just played something so simple but really overdid it. [ pauses ] It might be Alvin Lee from Ten Years After.

GW I was just about to name him!

SATRIANI Yeah. And it’s totally innocent, that moment from Woodstock that everybody refers to [Ten Years After’s performance of “I’m Going Home”], because Alvin Lee is a great blues guitar player. But as a shred moment…it could be that. He might have invented the genre right there.

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/joe-satriani-shred-ache

Iirc, Satriani was a lot more positive/defensive of shred in 93 and defined it more as someone who plays what they believe in regardless of the trends or the industry (?)

someone who plays what they believe in regardless of the trends or the industry

Shredding as masturbation — you're doing it for your own pleasure, and if you care at all what other people think, you're taking the wrong approach. Of course, this also means you shouldn't do it in front of other people without asking first.

Feel Like You've Been Here Before? It Might Be Déjà Vu - Penn Medicine

The shredding at the end of "Hymn To Him" is just incredible. There has never been a film epic enough to justify using that music for the ending.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FV4eOohUsAA0wbo?format=jpg&name=900x900

Whoever paid the $3.75 admission sure got their money's worth

Finally cleaned a bunch of McLaughlin records I had laying around - previously only knew the first two Mahavishnu Orchestra records - and Extrapolation and especially My Goal's Beyond are really great records. Maybe I'm soft but his shredding sounds better to me done acoustically in a more trad setting. There is a short riff on Peace Two that sounds like the underlying ascending/descending riff in Heart of the Sunrise.

do you know the Shakti stuff? acoustic fireworks!

cosined^

(i think it's his best playing)

I have never heard of Shakti. I am excited to try and find them!

They're touring soon.

https://www.shakti50.com/tour/

Another JM title to search out for acoustic fireworks is “Friday Night in San Francisco” with Al DiMeola and Paco DeLucia. It used to be one you could find on LP pretty easy as they sold a boodle of them.

First Shakti is pretty nuts especially as they do all those hyperspace unison runs with the guitar and tabla.

Somebody mentions Santana/Mclaughlin live upthread I think there was a several date tour cos I remember getting several dates about a decade back. So they must be circulating somewhere. Songs stretch out longer than on the studio lp Love,Devotion, Surrender I think by like 10 minutes in some places.

I also really like the band on the CTI Allstars live double with Billy Cobham on drums and George Benson on guitar. Pretty different feel but not sure how well known that is. Think it's a 5 piece band doing 3 or 4 numbers without a horn player amongst a bunch of other stuff with different lineups on the set. Heard it and wished there was more. Accompanied by Ron Carter on bass, Johnny Hammond keyboards and Airto on percussion. What is there is pretty long so there is something to get into but still wish there was more. On the record with the red most of a circle on the cover The California concert from 71.

Lifetime are pretty great too. I think especially as a 3 piece where they have more space to play around each other. Think the addition of a bassist makes them less fluid even if it is Jack Bruce.
Not sure how legit versions of the Village Gate set are but think it was released a few years back.

Devotion the 1970 studio lp is pretty good too. I thought I read years ago that Alan Douglas had damaged the tapes and tried out reconstructing them before release prototyping techniques used on Hendrix material notoriously a few years later. Pretty good lp though. Larry Young on keyboards as he is on the Lifetime and Santana stuff. & Buddy Miles on drums.

most of these albums are still easy find in decent condition on vinyl, they sold a lot and for whatever reason never had a hipster revival

Birds of Fire is one of my favorite albums, songs on it have been earworms for me for almost 40 years now. I bought it without knowing a thing about them other than recognizing Jan Hammer's name.

mclaughlin is one of the genuine classic artists of his time who remains pretty cheap on LP. The best of his stuff is close to miles, herbie, and some other fusion dudes who were/are his contemporaries. The one I had trouble finding for awhile was visions of the emerald beyond but I wound up getting a decent copy awhile back and it’s great.

All of JMs post 1990 records are on my list to check out at some point.

I like the two 80s Mahavisnu records especially Adventures in Radioland but it’s a totally different thing than what he’d did before. Jonas Hellborg does some cool stuff on that one (and he is an another musician I’d like to hear more…got a couple he did with Jeff Sipe and Shawn Lane).

I have checked out some videos of JM on the ‘Tube and that one with a trio with Joey DeFancisco and Elvin Jones is pretty fab, although no Marshalls like the early Mahavishnu stuff.

Adventures in Radioland is like ECM not on ECM…it’s kinda got that vibe.