The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a jazz-rock fusion group from New York, United… Read Full Bio ↴The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a jazz-rock fusion group from New York, United States, that debuted in 1970 and dissolved in 1976, reuniting briefly from 1984 to 1987.
In its first version, the band was led by "Mahavishnu" John McLaughlin on acoustic and electric guitars, with Billy Cobham on drums, Rick Laird on electric and acoustic bass, Jan Hammer on electric and acoustic piano, and Jerry Goodman on violin. The group is best known for their two most popular albums: The Inner Mounting Flame (1971) and Birds of Fire (1973).
From 1974 to 1976, personnel included Jean-Luc Ponty on violin, Narada Michael Walden on drums and vocals, Gayle Moran on vocals and keyboards, and Ralph Armstrong on bass, among others. This second incarnation of the group explored orchestral arrangements, as well as more mainstream funk and R&B grooves added to the mix.
This group was considered an important pioneer in the jazz fusion movement that was founded by Miles Davis. McLaughlin and Cobham met while performing and recording with Davis. McLaughlin was also influenced in his conception of the band by his studies with Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, who encouraged him to take the name "Mahavishnu".
McLaughlin had particular ideas for the instrumentation of the group, in keeping with his highly original concept of genre-blending in composition. He particularly wanted a violinist. As the group evolved, McLaughlin adopted what became his trademark double-neck guitar (six-string and twelve-string), and Hammer added a Moog synthesiser, which enabled him to bend notes, mimicking the phrasing of McLaughlin's guitar.
Their musical style was an unprecedented blending of genres: they combined the high-volume electrified rock sound that had been pioneered by Jimi Hendrix, complex rhythms in unusual time signatures that reflected McLaughlin's interest in Indian classical music as well as funk, an improvisational concept that was rooted in jazz as well as Indian music, and some harmonic influence from European classical music. The group's early music was entirely instrumental; their later albums had songs which sometimes featured R&B or even gospel/hymn styled vocals. In the aforementioned two albums, though, the group goes from this intense fusion of upbeat genres (the best example of which is "Noonward Race") to very serene tunes such as "A Lotus on Irish Streams" and "Thousand Island Park", which are pieces for acoustic guitar, piano, and violin; or from low-key to extremely busy in a single piece, such as "Open Country Joy".
In its first version, the band was led by "Mahavishnu" John McLaughlin on acoustic and electric guitars, with Billy Cobham on drums, Rick Laird on electric and acoustic bass, Jan Hammer on electric and acoustic piano, and Jerry Goodman on violin. The group is best known for their two most popular albums: The Inner Mounting Flame (1971) and Birds of Fire (1973).
From 1974 to 1976, personnel included Jean-Luc Ponty on violin, Narada Michael Walden on drums and vocals, Gayle Moran on vocals and keyboards, and Ralph Armstrong on bass, among others. This second incarnation of the group explored orchestral arrangements, as well as more mainstream funk and R&B grooves added to the mix.
This group was considered an important pioneer in the jazz fusion movement that was founded by Miles Davis. McLaughlin and Cobham met while performing and recording with Davis. McLaughlin was also influenced in his conception of the band by his studies with Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, who encouraged him to take the name "Mahavishnu".
McLaughlin had particular ideas for the instrumentation of the group, in keeping with his highly original concept of genre-blending in composition. He particularly wanted a violinist. As the group evolved, McLaughlin adopted what became his trademark double-neck guitar (six-string and twelve-string), and Hammer added a Moog synthesiser, which enabled him to bend notes, mimicking the phrasing of McLaughlin's guitar.
Their musical style was an unprecedented blending of genres: they combined the high-volume electrified rock sound that had been pioneered by Jimi Hendrix, complex rhythms in unusual time signatures that reflected McLaughlin's interest in Indian classical music as well as funk, an improvisational concept that was rooted in jazz as well as Indian music, and some harmonic influence from European classical music. The group's early music was entirely instrumental; their later albums had songs which sometimes featured R&B or even gospel/hymn styled vocals. In the aforementioned two albums, though, the group goes from this intense fusion of upbeat genres (the best example of which is "Noonward Race") to very serene tunes such as "A Lotus on Irish Streams" and "Thousand Island Park", which are pieces for acoustic guitar, piano, and violin; or from low-key to extremely busy in a single piece, such as "Open Country Joy".
Birds Of Fire
Mahavishnu Orchestra Lyrics
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@MDLOP8
From my book "Rock 'n' Blues Stew II":
(I argued for years with the late South Carolina music journalist Michael Buffalo Smith about getting this into print--and he is as big a fan of the M.O. as I am! “Too vivid” was one way he described this essay. Damn right—this is a monster of a recording! I’ve virtually memorized every note. John McLaughlin and the band raised the stakes with his compositions. Bassist Rick Laird also gave me a personal thumbs-up after reading this.)
Let’s play a mini-version of ‘Six Degrees of Separation, Allman Brothers/Southern Style’ in regard to this selection.
(1) Who did Jaimoe say that Berry, Duane, and he sounded like in Fame studios when they first met and decided to jam? The Mahavishnu Orchestra. (2) What guitarist (as well as Duane) was heavily inspired by John Coltrane and Miles Davis’s collaboration on Kind of Blue: John McLaughlin, leader of the M.O. (3) Who is one of Joseph “Red Dog” Campbell’s friends? Billy Cobham, drummer for the Orchestra. (4) What’s one of Warren Haynes’s personal favorite albums? Look closely: Birds of Fire. (5) Leo Kottke, who recorded Duane’s “Little Martha,” (three times) toured with which group at one time? Of course—the Mahavishnu Orchestra. (6) Speaking of Billy Cobham, when he first heard the Allman tandem of Butch and Jaimoe in a typical battering-ram drum solo, was convinced that it was one man overwhelming the kit, and even more impressed to hear it was a duo. I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity either to ponder whether Derek Trucks has had this in his CD player, would you?
This album, released in 1973, has enough energy and power to have been recorded in the birth of a supernova. Only the inner sanctum of guitarists had known a few years earlier of McLaughlin’s arrival from England as a living legend, but the message quickly flew to the general public.
The Orchestra featured McLaughlin’s double-neck blinding speed; Jan Hammer’s keyboard outcries; Jerry Goodman’s electric violin playing both classical themes and twin lead lines; Rick Laird’s trembling bass, and Billy Cobham’s super-speed percussion and footwork. If you need any more help, think of the legendary live Fillmore track of “Elizabeth Reed” and consider that as close kin. Pure kinetic outbursts of notes and turbulent rhythms whip and rage on these 10 cuts, but there’s also a few brief glimpses of relative calm in the eye of the hurricane.
It’s perhaps appropriate that Cobham’s gong splashes and rolling percussion alongside Goodman’s chanting violin herald the title song with an Asian Indian-like mantra, as McLaughlin awakens with a piercing, rising flurry that sounds like a peacock in a courtship frenzy. The ritual reply comes back from Hammer’s synthesizer, and then it’s back to the guitar and violin as they weave and intertwine like DNA strands. “Miles Beyond” (dedicated to the late trumpeter) emerges slowly from the jazzy fog of electric piano and then watches as Laird and Cobham raise the curtain for an opening statement by McLaughlin and Goodman.
What follows next requires headphones—as much as you want to believe it’s muted electric guitar, it’s really a beautiful, fascinating pizzicato on Goodman’s violin, supported by more electric piano musings. The band then throws themselves into a brief summary, only to have McLaughlin and Cobham devastate the landscape, sounding like a ferocious firefight from the worst days of warfare, with machine gun-like guitar bullets flying in front of a bombardment of cymbal-and-drum mortar explosions. The song ends as the opening phrase is once again firmly planted in the ground like a waving banner.
Like a scurrying swarm of ants in action (or New York City in rush hour), “Celestial Terrestrial Commuters” features more electric guitar/violin duets and twin lead lines, swept along by the pace of Cobham and Hammer like two men with push brooms in a hyperactive frenzy to clean up after the crowd. It’s followed by the brief (23-second) bit of electronic chatter of “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love.” The M.O. then offers one of the most delicate electric pieces ever recorded, “Thousand Island Park,” with McLaughlin’s flamenco-like acoustic performing a jazz ballet movement with Hammer’s piano as his partner, praised by Laird’s bass.
With almost poetic resolution, “Hope” builds in what can best be considered grandeur, strengthened by Cobham’s percussion and Laird’s upright bowed bass, capturing some of the rich arrangement ideas that George Martin used so effectively with the Beatles on albums like Magical Mystery Tour’s “I am the Walrus.”
Track seven, “One Word,” was born in the deep realms of space in a galaxy that contains life-forms unlike any found on Earth. Beginning with Cobham’s skintight inside-out snare solo, the band frantically careens through the very narrowest of channels like a bobsled race without brakes. They miraculously arrive unharmed and safe with the rescue effort of Laird’s solo, only to mutter and fuss behind his melodic tumbling notes.
However, it’s too easy to be safe, and in a three-way argument of “my opinion, and yours-be-damned,” McLaughlin, Hammer, and Goodman take turns venting their thoughts and gestures like a three-headed alien being with dramatic, flamboyant phrases. The climax between the tension is reached as each man/creature tries to shout down his colleague with overlapping statements that sound like a marriage counselor’s nightmare day in the office, and Cobham steps up to clear the brawl. A muscular drum solo follows as he rolls effortlessly back and forth on his tom-toms, and the double bass drum pedals thump like a dangerous blood pressure reading. A series of staccato notes signals that the band is ready to snap its chains again and breaks into a final exhausting sort of cosmic orgasm.
Something is sure needed to calm down the fury, and it’s time to seek “Sanctuary,” a song that must be a eulogy from the casualties of all this turmoil. Hammer’s grief-stricken synthesizer solo weeps behind the wails of dual violin-guitar lead, and there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. However, this isn’t the case, as “Open Country Joy” (a song that Kottke did on Dreams and All That Stuff and the newly-reissued 1971-1976: Did You Hear Me?) awakens like the first warm day of spring. Gliding violin and 12-string guitar preface the false ending, which bursts into full bloom behind McLaughlin’s electric warbling, Hammer’s return calls, and Goodman’s ecstatic freedom. Cobham unleashes a summer shower while the sun shines, then pulsates away, switching to brushes while the others frolic and dance.
All these adrenalin rushes have to find the time to regenerate, and “Resolution” closes out as the band redoubles its intention and vigor with a “you haven’t seen the last of me” conviction that is almost patriotic in its foundation. If anything is needed, it’s a towel and a shower as these five musical massage therapists have just finished pummeling the daylights out of your mental muscles.
Do not, under any circumstances, give this CD to anyone who is under a doctor’s supervision and requiring bed rest. On the other hand, if you need to paint the entire house in one day (or build one) and don’t mind doing the job yourself, the Mahavishnu Orchestra will gladly haul any gear or heavy construction material you need with the pure power of sound at its best—and it could move a mountain. I’ll bet they don’t require a ladder, either, because they know your speakers will use anti-gravity to get the job done. Crank it up and watch!
@willyjoe3000
The first time I heard this album was as a teenager at my uncle's farm in the late nineties. There was an old hippy school bus on the property, and I heard this screaming loud electric music coming from it. I walked in and all the lights were out. My dad and uncle were listening to One Word as loud as the hi fi would go. It felt like drugs; never heard anything like it before, and it permanently changed music for me!
@tshozee
your father and uncle had excellent taste😁
@jim8199
I saw Mahavishnu when I was 15 in 74 at a small venue in Toronto. They were AWESOME. I also saw Billy Cobham at a drum clinic some time after that too. His skill was mine blowing.
@zandapp
@@tshozee I will 16 and it blew me away.
@starboy1100
I first heard this in about 1972. I would have been 13. This album certainly changed my views and understanding of music for the rest of my life. Open Country Joy continues to be one of my favorite songs. Peace.
@philodrummond4164
I went to see the Who at Hoffheinz Pavilion in Houston once. Opening for them was Vanilla Fudge and a totally unknown Majavishnu Orchestra. My friend and I had eaten Orange Sunshine and we were really feelng it when Birds of Fire started. Mind immediately blown. Before I knew it I was standing in my chair! Those huge fat guitar textured trading licks with violin. Nobody i was listed to played anything like it. Totally sold! Awesome show. Oh yeah, The Who and Vanilla Fudge were pretty great, too!
@WarhawkBeyond2040
The greatest Mahavishnu Orchestra album of all time
@royjones3099
I think so as well......
@hammer123ize
Try top this. How about hitch-hiking 122miles to Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, 17yrs old, to see the years "Battle of the Bands" : Mahavishnu Orchestra & Frank Zappa.. Arguably the best lineup of muscians ever. Billy Cobham, drums. Zappa's Jean-Luc Ponty, violin vs MH's Jerry Goodman. George Duke, keyboards vs Jan Hammer. John McLaughlin, technical mastery of the new Jazz Fusion vs Frank Zappa, who could surprise you any second. Who won the Battle of the Bands ? The 14,000 amazed fans. Best concert ever saw.
@greg19071961
Went to their live concert in Brisbane Australia in the 70s....it was mindblowing! I was right in front of the stage...in front of John...I could almost touch him...he was transfixed...so was I! Best concert to this day! Later I was like "WTF WAS THAT? I was NOT on drugs but was so high! It STILL does that to me now! 🕊🎶🕊🎶🕊🎶