I picked this LP up on Sunday for 50p. I could not resist the gatefold sleeve featuring Mahavishnu John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana, and their groovy white suits.
Most of all I was warmed by the relative innocence and sweetness of the idea of a Coltrane tribute album influenced by Sri Chinmoy. Happier happier days.
Is it worth buying a record player to listen to it or is it a bit of a dirge?
Love Devotion Surrender
Haven’t heard it since my late teens but from memory the playing was very fast and a little soulless. I love Santana and Mahavishnu. The light and shade in Mahavishnu to my ears comes from Jan Hammer and Jerry Goodman. Santana obviously is capable of very lyrical playing, so too McLaughlin but pitching them together I think created a pissing competition to see who could play the fastest.
As I say these comments are based on what may very well be a flawed memory.
Take your LP to the nearest Town Dump. Look for the Toxic Waste Skip. Fling.
Lucky Escape….
I so remember this record being out and a pretty big seller but confess I have neither heard it nor ever felt particularly inclined to do so. However I think I might just do so now you’ve mentioned it. It’s on Spotify – I’ve checked – so I’d give it a listen there rather than actually buy a whole record player.
You might all be surprised to hear this but… I’ve never heard it. I don’t own it. I think I’ve heard bits of it here and there and thought exactly the same as Steve, above. I don’t really care for Santana’s sound in general, and out of the keenly balanced five headed equilibrium of the MO, JMcL just played too much too fast as that point in time.
However… I *did* buy the ‘Invitation To Illumination’ JMcL/Santana DVD, being their one-off Montreux performance in 2013. And it’s fabulous! And soulful! They’re older and wiser, and Carlos, I believe, actually helps JM re-find a little of what it was that made him so magical 40 years before. Forget the LP; get the DVD…
I like “Naima” and “Meditation”, the rest is a bit dirge-y, yes.
Both have made much better music on their own. The track “Love, Devotion and Surrender” from the Santana album “Welcome” from -73 is good though!
@henpetsgi is that a considered opinion or just a sledge.
I never owned it during its time of currency but I am a fan of both J Mac and Carlos. I bought it a couple of years ago and I think it is great. Sure there is some overplaying and business but if you don’t like that hen these are the wrong artists for you. I think it is great and worthy of repeated plAys.
Cheaper to find a cd for a few quid than a t/table for just this
Well I’ve had the album since it appeared in 1973, so Santana’s latest release would have been Welcome, whereas McLaughlin was about to launch Mahavishnu Mark 2. It’s a meeting of two hotshot guitarists, more Santana the band with added McLaughlin than anything else so loads of, you know, forward motion massed congas with our heroes undoubtedly doing pained expressions and striving for, you know, inner illumination amid the interplay.
For it is pretty good. Side One starts with a brisk reading of Coltrane’s LDS , followed by a lovely hushed acoustic Naima, then a McLaughlin composition, The Life Divine, simple by his standards with a little vocal chant setting off the two of them again as the intensity rises, Billy Cobham (and other drummers) setting up a furious 6/8 and the bass player is the remarkable Doug Rauch, first noticeable on the still-wonderful Caravanserai album.
Side Two can’t keep this up and is largely a blow (in 10/8. I think, before dissolving into a samba) and doesn’t really go anywhere, but is fast!, covering most of the side. Not a dirge in sight. You’d have to say it’s filler actually. A brief acoustic closer at the end. This is the side that hardly gets played, it’s Side One all the way.
Buy a turntable? Only if you’re going to make a habit of acquiring vinyl, Vim. Otherwise, what Junior said.
As to merits – what Declan said.
It’s half a good record, as most records are. Always used to be enough in the olden days. I got it a couple of years ago out of curiosity and was pleasantly surprised, even if only half of it got ripped to the pod.
JMcL is also on ‘Welcome’ (one track). Let’s have some blissful ‘Naima’ from that Montreux reunion:
Yikes! Vengeance will be theirs:
http://liveforlivemusic.com/news/carlos-santana-announces-supergroup-with-herbie-hancock-john-mclaughlin-wayne-shorter/
Take that, Tutti Frutti-listening, Coltrane-and-Davis-ignoring American public! Jazz fusion is coming!
Jazz-fusion to the power of four, it seems, if we count Carlos, Macca, Wayne and Herbie as towering titans of the genre.
Unfortunately, it’s one of those genres wherein more usually doesn’t mean more (witness ‘Love, Devotion, Surrender’). My view remains that the Mahavishnu Orchestra was a perfect 5-way collaboration held in equilibrium for an amazing 2 1/2 years until the chemistry/egos could remain stable no longer.
Then again, everyone is older and wiser now. I can’t quite ‘hear’ Wayne Shorter in this, though. Even though JMcL has played on one of his albums, and doubtless CS and HH too at some point, he tends to be more ‘out there’, not a man to fit into a pulse let alone a jazz-rock pulse. Hmmmmm…