Track Listing

1. Meeting of the Spirits
2. Dawn
3. Noonward Race
4. Lotus on Irish Streams
5. Vital Transformation
6. Dance of Maya
7. You Know You Know
8. Awakening

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80303 in Music
• Released on: 1999-12-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording remastered, Import
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

From Amazon.com
Reissued with sparkling audio and exclusive photographs, this first, 1971, Mahavishnu album certainly vies for the title of the greatest of all jazz-rock recordings. Through spiritually questing flights of intense fury and exquisite quiet, it never loses its sense of inexorable force. Jan Hammer (keyboards), Jerry Goodman (violin), and bassist Rick Laird are completely sympathetic with guitarist John McLaughlin's vision as the music abandons the standard jazz format of successive solos in favor of rapid, heightening, braided, interactive contributions--a structure much drawn from Indian classical music. Astoundingly, the music retains discipline. For that, thank Billy Cobham: Through all the expressive, irregular meters, he remains a steady, resolved engine of percussion, vastly resourceful but ultimately reserved. McLaughlin's alchemy distills many worlds of music­-the jazz-guitar masters, flamenco, blues, Indian forms, and his experience in the innovations of the seminal jazz-rock outfits of Miles Davis and Tony Williams. Of course, distortion, feedback, and arena-rock amplification were crucial, as was the influence of Sri Chinmoy, McLaughlin's spiritual guide. "The Noonward Race," "Vital Transformation," and "The Dance of Maya" are music for the ages. -- Peter Monaghan

Customer Reviews

A Definitive Moment in Fusion
Over thirty years ago I gave someone Home's The Alchemist (Whose What?) in exchange for this album. It was the best trade I ever did. A long time later I discovered In a Silent Way, Miles Davis's seminal fusion album featuring John McLaughlin on guitar, but for a long time, The Mahavishnu Orchestra was fusion.

The opening track, Meeting of the Spirits, sets a breakneck pace. It's like an updated Ride of the Valkyries, same loping 3/4 time signature, at the beginning. It then lays back a little, and then gets right back into it. Billy Cobham's drums drive the pace, and McLaughlin and violinist Jerry Goodman fire out musical bullets. Should anyone ever remake Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kilgore's Air Cav could easily (albeit anachronistically) ride into action to the sounds of Mahavishnu in place of Wagner.

Alternatively, you could do a pretty martial waltz to it!

A couple more perfect fusion storms are followed by the pastoral calm of A Lotus on Irish Streams, in which Jan Hammer's fluttering piano complements perfectly the gentle violin and acoustic guitar. Hammer would later go on to add the theme tune icing to the Miami Vice style cake.

On vinyl that was the closing track of side one.

Side two heralded more stormy weather and some weird fusion time signatures begin, making the rhythm more edgy - and more challenging if all you came to do was dance. This was made at a time when King Crimson's Bob Fripp was boasting of his use of 12/13 time or some such, and McLaughlin joined in the party. But don't ask me what the time signature is. I can't count that fast.

Again Cobham drives the pace, with crackling drum and sizzling hi hat, but the power of Rick Laird's bass underpins the enterprise when the drums fly off the edge of the disc, as they often do. There are some staggering changes in pace. The band is a fine-tuned, fuel-injected motor and the slightest touch on the gas pedal sends it careening down the road. One second you're laying back, taking in the vibe, the next you've turned a corner and in the fast lane experiencing a nose-bleed inducing g-force.

Dance of Maya at one point falls into a syncopated blues figure, catapults into a driving guitar-led melee, then just as easily falls into a 3/4 phase interrupted every few bars by a slow roll on drums.

The final track, Awakening, is like the rousing of a tiger, and it's mad! Before it's done it's growled, screamed and roared, and totally eviscerated the alarm clock.

Awakening? If this stuff doesn't do to it to you, you're long dead.

Influential Classic
I recently purchased this CD and it sounds just as groundbreaking now as it must have done in 1972. I much prefer this album to Birds of Fire even though there are no synthesisers on it. I think it sounds more focussed and intense. You can hear how this album influenced mid 70s progressive rock while inspiring a generation of British Jazz rock bands.

Incredible
I've always enjoyed listening to Jazz, and probably became interested in John McLaughlin through Miles Davis' work. I bought "Birds of Fire" and was immediately hooked, amazed by both the mystic slant of this type of jazz fusion and the amazing tight production.
I recently aquired Inner Mounting Flame and was just blown away by this album; it is far more adventurous than Birds of Fire and in many ways more enjoyable for it. Its a showcase for the talents of all four members and all the tracks are just incredible to listen to; check out the opening to the final track Awakening and you will see what I mean.
A worthy addition to any collection, whatever your tastes.