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John McLaughlin (musician)

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John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin (born January 4, 1942), also Mahavishnu John McLaughlin (not to be confused with pop/rock artist Jon McLaughlin), is a jazz fusion guitar player from Doncaster, Yorkshire in England. He came to prominence with Miles Davis' electric jazz-fusion groups from the late 1960s. He is regarded by many as one of the most influential and technically gifted guitarists of all time, having mastered a remarkable range of styles and genres, including jazz, Indian classical music, fusion, and Flamenco.

Career

Before moving to the US, McLaughlin recorded Extrapolation (with Tony Oxley and John Surman) in 1969, in which McLaughlin showed technical virtuosity, inventiveness, and the ability to play in odd meters. He moved to the US in 1969 to join Tony Williams's group Lifetime. He subsequently played with Miles Davis on his landmark albums In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew (which has a track named after him), On The Corner, Big Fun (where he is featured soloist on Go Ahead John) and A Tribute to Jack Johnson — Davis paid tribute to him in the liner notes to Jack Johnson, calling McLaughlin's playing "far in". McLaughlin returned to the Davis band for two recorded nights of a week-long club date, which was released as part of the album Live/Evil.

His reputation as a "first-call" session player grew, resulting in recordings as a sideman with Miroslav Vitous, Larry Coryell, Wayne Shorter, Carla Bley, The Rolling Stones and others.

He recorded Devotion in early 1970 on Douglas Records (run by Alan Douglas), a high-energy, psychedelic, fusion album that featured Larry Young on organ (who had been part of Lifetime), Billy Rich on bass and the R&B drummer Buddy Miles (who had played with Jimi Hendrix). Devotion was the first of two albums he released on Douglas.

On the second Douglas album, however, McLaughlin went in a different direction in 1971 when he released My Goal's Beyond in the US, an amazing collection of unamplified acoustic works, including extended performances on side A of "Peace One" and "Peace Two," offering a fusion blend of jazz and Indian classical forms. Side B features some of the most melodic acoustic playing McLaughlin ever recorded, including such standards as "Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat," by Charles Mingus whom McLaughlin considered an important influence on his own development. Other tracks that expressed some of McLaughlin's other influences include "Something Spiritual" (Dave Herman), "Hearts and Flowers" (P.D. Bob Cornford), "Phillip Lane," "Waltz for Bill Evans" (Chick Corea), "Follow Your Heart," "Song for My Mother" and "Blue in Green" (Miles Davis). "Follow Your Heart" had been released earlier on Extrapolation under the title "Arjen's Bag". My Goal's Beyond was inspired by McLaughlin's recent decision to follow the Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, to whom he had been introduced in 1970 by Larry Coryell's manager. The album was dedicated to Chinmoy, with one of the guru's poems printed on the liner notes. It was on this album that McLaughlin took the name "Mahavishnu."

McLaughlin's 1970s electric band, the The Mahavishnu Orchestra included violinist Jerry Goodman (later Jean-Luc Ponty), keyboardist Jan Hammer (later Gayle Moran and Stu Goldberg), bassist Rick Laird (later Ralphe Armstrong), and drummer Billy Cobham (later Narada Michael Walden). The band performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused eclectic jazz and rock with eastern and Indian influences. This band established fusion as a new and growing style within the jazz and rock worlds.

After the Mahavishnu Orchestra split, McLaughlin worked with the far more low-key, acoustic group Shakti. This group combined Indian music with elements of jazz and thus may be regarded as a pioneer of world music. It featured L. Shankar (violin), Zakir Hussain (tabla), T.H. Vikku Vinayakram (ghatam) and earlier Ramnad Raghavan (mridangam). John was the first westerner to attain any acclaim performing Indian music for Indian audiences.

In 1973 he collaborated with Carlos Santana, also a disciple of Sri Chinmoy, on an album of devotional songs, Love Devotion Surrender, which included recordings of Coltrane compositions including A Love Supreme. He has also worked with the jazz composers Carla Bley and Gil Evans.

In 1979 he teamed up with flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía and Larry Coryell (replaced by Al Di Meola in the early 1980s) as the Guitar Trio, the virtuoso talents of all three musicians equally on display. The Trio, again featuring McLaughlin along with de Lucía and Di Meola, reunited in 1996 for a second recording session and a world tour.

In 1986 he appeared with Dexter Gordon in Bertrand Tavernier's film "Round Midnight."

In the early 1990s he toured with his trio on the Que Alegria album. The trio comprised John McLaughlin, Trilok Gurtu, Kai Eckhardt and Dominique DiPiazza. Following this period he recorded and toured with The Heart of Things featuring Gary Thomas, Dennis Chambers, Matthew Garrison, Jim Beard and Otmaro Ruiz. In recent times he has toured with Remember Shakti. In addition to original Shakti member Zakir Hussain, this group has also featured eminent Indian musicians U. Srinivas, V. Selvaganesh, Shankar Mahadevan, Shivkumar Sharma, and Hariprasad Chaurasia.

His latest recording projects have been a ballet score, Thieves and Poets, released in 2003 along with arrangements for classical guitar ensemble of favorite jazz standards, a three DVD instructional video on improvisation (which revolutionised video lessons [1]), and a hard bop/jazz fusion album entitled Industrial Zen, released in June 2006, on which McLaughlin experiments with the Godin Glissentar as well as continuing to expand the guitar-synth repertoire.

Guitars (selection)

  • The first Abe Wechter-built acoustic "Shakti"-guitar with seven additional drone strings.
  • "Marielle", acoustic guitar with cutaway.
  • "Our Lady", built by Abe Wechter for John Mclaughlin.
  • Summary of the guitars played by John McLaughlin.

See also

References

  1. ^ Walter Kolosky "All About Jazz" 2004 http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=14486
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