Sunday, August 25, 2013
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN (born 4
January 1942, Doncaster, South
Yorkshire, England), also known as Mahavishnu John
McLaughlin, is an English guitarist,
bandleader and composer. His music
includes many genres of jazz,
and rock, which he coupled with an
interest in Indian classical music to
become one of the pioneering figures in fusion.
In 2010 guitarist Jeff Beck called him "the best
guitarist alive". The Indian tabla maestro Zakir
Hussain has called him "one of the greatest and one of the important musicians
of our times". In 2003, McLaughlin was ranked 49th in Rolling
Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
After contributing to several key British groups of the early
sixties and making his first solo record Extrapolation (with Tony
Oxleyand John Surman) he moved to the USA where he played with Tony
Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his
landmark electric jazz-fusion albums In A Silent Way, Bitches
Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On The Corner.
His 1970's electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a
technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and
rock with Indian influences.
John McLaughlin is a leading guitarist in jazz and jazz fusion.
His style has been described as one of aggressive speed, technical precision,
and harmonic sophistication. He is known for using exotic scales and
unconventional time signatures. Indian music has had a profound influence on
his style, and, it has been written, he is one of the first westerners to play
Indian music to Indian audiences. He
was influential in bringing jazz fusion to popularity with Miles Davis,
playing with Davis on five of his studio albums, including Davis' first
gold-certified Bitches Brew, and one live album, Live-Evil.
Speaking of himself in an interview with Going Thru Vinyl, McLaughlin has
stated that the guitar is simply "part of his body," and feels more
comfortable when a guitar is present.
McLaughlin has been cited as a major influence on many 1970s and
1980s fusion guitarists. Examples are prominent players such as Steve
Morse, Eric Johnson, Mike Stern, Paul Masvidal, Al Di Meola,
Pebber Brown, Shawn Lane, and Scott Henderson. His influence did not
stop in the 80's, though; hardcore punk guitarist Greg Ginn of Black
Flag cited Birds of Fire by The Mahavishnu Orchestra which
inspired him to record more progressive guitar work and even record instrumental
songs. Current players still hold him as highly influential, including Omar
Rodriguez of The Mars Volta. According to Pat Metheny,
McLaughlin has changed the evolution of the guitar during several of his
periods of playing. McLaughlin is also considered a major influence on
composers in the fusion genre. In an interview with Downbeat, Chick
Corea remarked that "...what John McLaughlin did with theelectric
guitar set the world on its ear. No one ever heard an electric guitar
played like that before, and it certainly inspired me. John's band, more than
my experience with Miles, led me to want to turn the volume up and write music
that was more dramatic and made your hair stand on end". Frank Zappa said
of McLaughlin in Guitar Player, Jan. 1977: "A person would be a moron not
to appreciate McLaughlin's technique. The guy has certainly found out how to
operate a guitar as if it were a machine gun. But I'm not always enthusiastic
about the lines I hear or the ways in which they're used. I don't think you can
fault him, though, for the amount of time and effort it must have taken to play
an instrument that fast. I think anybody who can play that fast is just
wonderful. And I'm sure 90% of teenage America would agree, since the whole
trend in the business has been "faster is better."
Perhaps the most unique tribute to McLaughlin's influence came in
the 1970s from the musician and comedian Darryl Rhoades. In the 1970s, he
led the "Hahavishnu Orchestra," which did parodies of the funk, rock
and jazz musical styles of the era.
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