Track Listing

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8752 in Music
• Released on: 1998-08-31
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
As British bands like Yes, ELP, and Genesis extended the borders of rock & roll, John McLaughlin had seized the opportunity to do the same with jazz. The first stars of the jazz/rock fusion camp, the Mahavishnu Orchestra played sellout concerts, sold records in quantities previously unheard of by jazz musicians, and captured a crossover audience of forward-looking jazz devotees and progressive rock fans.
The music on THE INNER MOUNTING FLAME is incendiary and highly improvisational. Well-conceived unison melodic passages structureeach tune, and McLaughlin and company play like the virtuosos they are throughout. "The Noonward Race" features a bluesy, yet harmonically dissonant solo from McLaughlin, and the frenetic drumming of Billy Cobham. In contrast, in "A Lotus on Irish Streams", McLaughlin soars passionately on an acoustic guitar, while violinist Jerry Goodman adds a simple, folky melody.

Customer Reviews

Jazz meets Hendrix
This is guitarist John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra's debut recording, and although there are some rough edges to a few of the pieces, this is a quality album of early '70s jazz-rock fusion (with the emphasis more on rock than jazz). The line-up of the band is impressive, with McLaughlin on guitars, Jerry Goodman on violin, Billy Cobham on drums, Rick Laird on bass and Jan Hammer on keyboards. The addition of Goodman gives the band a very different (and much copied) texture, and his solos are highly impressive. McLaughlin is in-your-face as usual, and this follows directly on from his work with Miles Davis.

The first track (Meeting of the Spirits) is probably the best track on the album (though maybe You Know, You Know pushes it very close indeed), with it's quick-fire guitar and violin lines, and the virtuosic drumming of Cobham, who is excellent all through the performance. The piece is in three, and that's what really gives it a very different feel to most of the rock that you hear (the repetetive riff is very catchy). You Know, You Know contains another repetetive figure, but this time the atmosphere is far more relaxed, and the long silences at the beginning are inspired. Jan Hammer brings a more avante-garde spirit to the band with some very individual and quirky solos (he really likes using that pitch bender). The only thing that doesn't work is A Lotus on Irish Streams. McLaughlin's twanging on acoustic guitar and the meandering tune just don't fit with the spirit of the album.

This is the definitive recording of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and well worth getting hold of , if you're a Hendrix fan or keen on the rockier side of fusion.

my favourite record of all time
Meeting of the Spirits and You Know You Know are magical and the only track that drags is 'Lotus' which is incongruous to the whole. The drumming is breathtaking with changes in time signatures which seem impossible. The guitar, violin and electric piano complement each other perfectly. I saw the band when they played at the Crystal Palace Bowl in London circa 1971 and it changed my life. Fusion has a reputation for being pompous and pretentious but this record is neither - just a group of virtuoso musicians making a great sound and creating a mystical atmosphere - even for an agnostic!

Music, the like of which you'll have never heard before
I'm in my mid-50s now, yet this album is still the most extraordinary piece of music I have ever heard. It also changed my life when I first heard it - under the bed covers listening to John Peel on my pocket trannie in 1973; and I remember how enthused John was with the album (before it became hip to loath jazz fusion). I'd never ever heard music like it before, and I haven't since, either. I profoundly disagree with the other two reviewers about 'Lotus on Irish Streams' - McLaughlin's, Goodman's and Hammer's playing on this dream-of-a-track is quite breathtaking, and for me their soaring spiritual synergy sums up what the original Orchestra was all about. As the book on the Orchestra says, this truly was 'the greatest band that ever was'. At less than a fiver, this is unbelievable value - and if you're wondering what all the fuss is about via-a-vis John McLaughlin's legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra, this has to be the definitive place to start.