Mahavishnu Orchestra With John McLaughlin - Birds of Fire
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Artist: Mahavishnu Orchestra With John McLaughlinEdition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2000-08-08
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
- Birds of Fire
- Miles Beyond
- Celestial Terrestrial Commuters
- Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love
- Thousand Island Park
- Hope
- One Word
- Sanctuary
- Open Country Joy
- Resolution
Music reviews of Birds of Fire
Music Review: In 1972, when this was released, there was nothing like it. Nothing.
Rating: 5 Stars
The "original" Mahavishnu Orchestra flamed out after two studio albums and a live album that failed to capture their full power. The "lost third album" was eventually released on CD (The Lost Trident Sessions), but for the purpose of this review, we are looking at what...at the time...was the "final" studio album from the original M.O. lineup.
The spirit of the band is best found in the track "Resolution"...it keeps climbing, and climbing, and climbing...where's this one gonna resolve...and ultimately, it just melts. It also offers further proof that McLaughlin's rhythm work...at its peak on Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson...was every bit as tasty as his "speed of sound" lead work.
John McLaughlin had a well-deserved reputation in the early 70s as "fastest gun in the West"...or anyone else for that matter. Long before Eddie Van Halen tore up the airwaves with "Eruption," McLaughlin was making jaws drop with his fretboard fury on shows like ABC's late-night "In Concert."
The band...McLaughlin, drummer Billy Cobham, violinist Jerry Goodman and keyboardist Jan Hammer...ultimately represented four egos-slash-ambitions too large to fit into any concert hall. That, coupled with the legions of truly awful fusion bands that followed in Mahavishnu's wake, leads some to believe that their reputation exceeded their substance.
Don't believe it for a minute.
This album, as well as The Inner Mounting Flame, are as "essential" as essential gets. Buy both...you won't be disappointed.
Description of Birds of Fire
Thanks to yet another pristine digital remastering from the archivists at Legacy, we are drawn deeper into the creative vortex of John McLaughlin's groundbreaking fusion ensemble, captured at the peak of their powers in August 1972. By this time, Mahavishnu were headliners, and by offering greater bass extension, more air and resolution, and a clearer sense of distinction between the component parts, McLaughlin's collaborators sound clearer in their shaping of the group's overall sound. Clearly, guitarist McLaughlin was the creative lightning rod, as his chanting solo on the title tune suggests, colored as it is by the cathartic melodic fire of late Coltrane and Hendrix. Likewise, his interest in the vocalized scales and extended rhythmic cycles of Indian classical music reveals itself in the round-robin solo exchanges on showstoppers like "Celestial Terrestrial Commuters" and "One Word" and in the more formal designs of "Hope" and "Resolution."But in Billy Cobham, McLaughlin had found his Elvin Jones. Cobham's ability, with bassist Rick Laird, to focus ferocious energy toward making odd meters groove, and the band's funky, backbeats swing--while playing with an enormous tonal palette and a keen sense of dynamics--balanced the formal and improvisational aspects of each arrangement. Likewise, Jerry Goodman's soaring violin is the ideal vocal foil for an electric guitar, and the woefully underrated electric pianist and synth innovator Jan Hammer clearly helps flesh out the harmonic fabric on every arrangement, such as the funky changes of "Miles Beyond" and the classical airs of "Thousand Island Park." Ultimately, the joy of seeing Mahavishnu live was in sharing their sense of adventure and discovery, and that collective chemistry is what makes this reissue of Birds of Fire so vital. Truly, the sum was greater than the parts--too bad you can't go home again. --Chip Stern
If not for the Mahavishnu Orchestra's first album, The Inner Mounting Flame, this second, 1973 outing might well be considered the greatest of all jazz-fusion essays. Both are staggering calls to celestial coursing and reckoning, and to resolution. All is breathtakingly purposeful and assured, with vast group cohesion, and phenomenal contributions by keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, bassist Rick Laird, torrential drummer Billy Cobham, and foremost, by the leader, guitarist John McLaughlin. One hears all the elements of his musical makeup: Tal Farlow; Django Reinhart's stunning single-note runs; flamenco guitar; sophisticated Delta blues; way-over-the-top arena-rock distortion, feedback, and power amplification; and Indian classical and folk music. All that, plus childhood lessons in classical piano and violin and recent studies with spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, set the cosmic stew to boil. -- Peter Monaghan
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