Happy Birthday John McLaughlin.

(By Steve T)

In 1973, three months short of my twelth birthday, I found myself part of something that would change my life. 

Despite his white suit and short hair, it wasn't unusual for people who went to see Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, Hawkwind and Roxy Music, and Genesis and Yes to also go and see the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Years later. having read some of the growing literature on John McLaughlin, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Jazz-Rock, it seemed there are two common threads amongst those who saw them live, besides Pat Metheny's recollection that it was like your face melting. That everybody who saw them had their lives changed by the experience, and that people thought that it was all John McLaughlin. My sole recollection was of a concert length guitar solo of astonishing speed and power that was beyond the comprehension of the human brain to adequately register. I would never claim it was anything other than way over my head, but he became the musician of my life and has remained so ever since.

He was born on January 4, 1942 and a photo of him as a child on the Electric Guitarist album reveals he was from Sunniside, Yorkshire though grandparents in Whitley Bay meant he spent time in clubs in Newcastle before becoming a sought after session musician in Sixties London, playing pop, rock and jazz, and recording his first solo albums.

It was Tony Williams - drummer in Miles Davis' Second Great Quintet - who initially brought him to America, to feature in his pioneering jazz-rock band Lifetime, but like Williams and McLaughlin, Miles had also had his mind blown by Hendrix and knew he had found his man. He played on all of Miles' seminal fusion albums of the early seventies, including Bitches Brew which features a track called John McLaughlin.   

It was Miles who advised him to form his own band and guru Sri Chinmoy - since discredited - who named him Mahavishnu.

After two studio albums and one live set, the original band burnt out quickly but he assembled a larger band for two further albums, the first of which - Visions of the Emerald Beyond - is mine and his favourite.

Despite huge success and fame, he disbanded them to create an Indo-Fusion band called Shakti, who recorded three albums before he returned to jazz-rock on the Electric Guitarist album. 

He revived the Mahavishnu Orchestra name several times with different lineups and would recreate Shakti much later, as well as playing Spanish music and classical music and creating virtuoso guitar trios, initially with Paco de Lucia and Larry Coryell, and then with Al Di Meola replacing Coryell.

In 2008 he created the 4th Dimension, a band more routed in jazz-rock than anything he'd done since the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

The first time I saw them the compere began naming people he'd played with and he stopped her after Miles, Hendrix and Wayne Shorter, presumably for fear a comprehensive list would go on longer than the concert.

That night he played a cut from the first Mahavishnu Orchestra - something he'd never done - which opened the door for a revival which became a farewell US tour in 2017.

There was always a chance he'd bring it to the UK the following year, but the possibility of missing it was too great to risk and never an option. I'd seen him four times in different bands since that first time all those years ago, but this was the most spectacular display of virtuosity I'd seen by any musician since.     

I have written before that if the world ever comes to fully accept Jazz-Rock, he will be recognised as the greatest jazz artist since John Coltrane.

Steve T