JOHN McLAUGHLIN

Born: Yorkshire, England, 4 January 1942

Genre: Jazz, Classical, World

Best-selling album since 1990: Inner Mounting Flame (1998)

As the leader of the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin introduced spiritual themes to the blazing speed, powerhouse rhythms, and newly emergent instruments of electric jazz-rock fusion. Since the 1990s, he has demonstrated how youthful brilliance can flower into maturity across musical genres by revisiting jazz standards and conventional formats that have inspired him, while maintaining his ground-breaking high-tech and high-energy ensembles and Shakti, the acoustic ensemble that brought Hindi classical music to rock audiences. He has also performed original chamber and symphonic works with world-class instrumentalists and orchestras.

Starting conventional piano and violin lessons at age nine, McLaughlin became enamored of the electric guitar at age eleven and largely taught himself the instrument under the influence of recordings by the Chicago blues guitarist Elmore James, the Belgian gypsy Django Reinhardt, the American modernist Tal Farlow, and other blues and swing pioneers. In London during the 1960s, McLaughlin worked with the popular, progressive bands of rockers Georgie Fame and Graham Bond, folk-rocker Brian Auger, and drummer Ginger Baker, a founding member of Cream. McLaughlin roomed with bassist Dave Holland and was a member of the circle of jazz musicians jamming at Ronnie Scott's club. In 1969 McLaughlin released his debut album, Extrapolation, moved to New York City to join drummer Tony Williams's trio Lifetime, and participated in Miles Davis's breakthrough electric jazz albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Although he continued working with Davis intermittently through the 1980s, both in concert and in studio projects, McLaughlin was never formerly a Davis band member. In 1970 McLaughlin became a disciple of Sri Chimnoy, who gave him the Hindu name "Mahavishnu" after the Hindu god of sustenance, and he established the Mahavishnu Orchestra (MO) with keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, bassist Rick Laird, and drummer Billy Cobham. Their unique repertoire of bold, often odd-metered instrumental music excited young audiences attuned to much more basic rock fare. The MO's aura of ecstatic religiosity contrasted with prevailing presentation styles, though its dynamics were akin to those of bands exploring heightened experience through psychedelic drugs.

The original lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra released three albums, and, as reorganized in 1974 to include French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, recorded two more with a string section and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1975 McLaughlin initiated Shakti, a lively acoustic ensemble drawing on traditional Southern Indian (Carnatic) music, in which he played guitar with the Indian violinist L. Shankar and the tabla (hand drums) player Zakir Hussein. During that decade McLaughlin also recorded with Carlos Santana and instituted an acoustic guitar trio with European collaborators. By the mid-1980s, when he appeared on The Tonight Show and in the film 'Round Midnight (1986), both times to perform more conventional modern jazz, he had established much of the range he has subsequently pursued.

McLaughlin does not reiterate his interests; he advances them. He has pioneered the use of guitar-synthesizers and MIDI interfaces in electric jazz settings. He has promoted Hindustani musicians, including percussionist Trilok Gurtu and flutist Hariprasad Churasia, and many worthy young instrumentalists (including guitarist Dominique di Piazza; bassists Kai Eckhardt, Matthew Garrison, and Jonas Hellborg; and saxophonist Gary Thomas) in his diverse ensembles. He has adapted repertoire associated with the pianist Bill Evans and the saxophonist John Coltrane to the guitar, and has initiated classically inclined efforts, recording with the concert pianist Katia LaBeque and debuting his neo-Romantic "Mediterranean Concerto" (1988) with Tilson-Thomas conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Especially since the 1990s, McLaughlin has strived to bring elements of his diverse projects together. His refined lyricism is evident in the funk-oriented music of his band Free Spirits, with organist Joey DeFrancesco and soul-drummer Dennis Chambers. His Mahavishnu energy infects acoustic trio recitals with fellow guitarists Paco De Lucia and Al DiMeola, and his jazz-derived phrasing is in evidence in his Indian and classical settings. He records prolifically, alternating among his ensembles while nurturing his compositional ambitions in the chamber and orchestral genres. In 2003 McLaughlin prepared a three-movement score commissioned by choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot for the Ballets de Monte Carlo titled "Thieves and Poets," featuring symphony orchestra and violin, cello, clarinet, classical guitar, and himself as soloist, to be recorded by I Pomeriggi Musicali Orchestra of Milan. Simultaneously, he prepared recordings of his favorite American songbook standards, including "Stella by Starlight" and "My Foolish Heart."

McLaughlin never blunts his passion or technique, and his ever-wider repertoire emphasizes the "one world" message of his earliest Mahavishnu days. From the 1970s to the turn of the twenty-first century, McLaughlin has continued to wed sacred and secular goals and pleasures. In performance, whatever his ensemble, he exudes both an immediate presence and a transporting intensity.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Extrapolation (Polydor, 1969); Devotion (Douglas, 1970); My Goal's Beyond (Rykodisc, 1970); Inner Mounting Flame (Columbia, 1971); Birds of Fire (Columbia 1973); Apocalypse (Columbia, 1974); Visions of the Emerald Beyond (Columbia, 1975); Shakti (Columbia, 1976); Johnny McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist (Columbia, 1978); One Truth Band (Columbia, 1978); Belo Horizonte (Warner Bros., 1981); Music Spoken Here (Warner Bros., 1983); Mediterranean Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (Columbia, 1988); The Lost Trident Sessions (1999). With Miles Davis: In a Silent Way Sessions (Columbia, 1969); Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970); A Tribute to Jack Johnson (Columbia, 1970); Big Fun (Columbia, 1972); On the Corner (Columbia, 1972); You're Under Arrest (Columbia, 1985); Aura (Columbia, 1985); Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra, "The Mediterranean" (CBS, 1990); John McLaughlin Trio, Live at the Royal Festival Hall (JMT, 1990); Qué Alegría (Verve, 1992); Time Remembered: John McLaughlin Plays Bill Evans (Verve, 1993); The Free Spirits, Tokyo Live (Verve, 1994); After the Rain (Verve 1995); The Promise (Verve, 1995); Paco De Lucia/Al Di Meola/John McLaughlin (Verve, 1996); The Heart of Things (Verve, 1997); Remember Shakti (Verve, 1998); Mahavishnu Orchestra: The Lost Trident Sessions (Columbia Legacy, 1999); The Heart of Things: Live in Paris (Verve, 2000); Remember Shakti: The Believer (Verve, 2000); Remember Shakti: Saturday Night in Bombay (Verve, 2001). With the Tony Williams Lifetime: Spectrum: The Anthology (Polygram, 1997).

howard mandel