Mahavishnu Orchestra C/D/S/D

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.

The Inner Mounting Flame is str8 fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5LmOzgwW6M
The hornless lineup from the expanded CTI All-Stars California Concert with Billy Cobham on drums, George Benson on guitar which was the instrument that brought him to fame as a Wes Montgomery influenced player, Johnny Hammond on Keyboards, Airto on percussion and Ron Carter as bandleader on bass.
So this is what Cobham was doing at the stat of Mahavishnu getting material out. Do wish there was more of this, there are a couple more tracks without horns on here and the band here is the backing band elsewhere too. I think the band is a bit moe alive and definitely less string drenched than the studio recordings from the label. Picked this up on cd a decade or so ago thinking i recognised the title and quite enjoyed it when I got it home. Several longer tracks across the 2cds, 1st of which is pretty much teh lp as released in the 70s plus I think a couple of edited tracks restored to full length.

I read recently that in the '60s, Jimmy Page took a number of guitar lessons with John McLaughlin. It makes sense, McLaughlin was the only one of his peers from whom Page could have had anything to learn.

Bathed In Lightning the Colin Harper biography seemed to be pretty good

Devotion the 1970 studio lp is pretty good too.

I got around to this one this evening and I think I put it third behind Extrapolation and My Goal's Beyond. Still good.