Vishnu - Between Nothingness and Eternity

[Fracktured]

Apocalypse is still my favorite, but to me it always sounded like the orchestra was edited in. The orchestral parts could have been done a lot better.

[Dave (in MA)]

Are there any fans of the 80s Mahavishnu? I got my hands on the Adventures in Radio Land album years ago and I was so meh about it that I never investigated them further.

[mozo-pg]

I'm a huge fan of their 70s output, like line-up 1 and 2, but the 80s is a wash. Is Maha that hard to type in a title?

[zombywoof]

p.s.

with all due respect to someone's opinion that differers from mine, I am listening to The Noonward Race posted above and McLaughlin's tone is simply amazing and fucking sick.

I love "Noonward Race"! That's the another really great track from Inner Mounting Flame - "Lotus on Irish Steams" is one I've always loved, too. It's the live record I had difficulty appreciating for some reason.

[No Pride]

p.s.

with all due respect to someone's opinion that differers from mine, I am listening to The Noonward Race posted above and McLaughlin's tone is simply amazing and fucking sick.

Guitar tone is a very subjective thing, both for the players and the listeners. To me, McLaughlin's sound is kind of muddy on the first two studio albums; ymmv. I do really like his sound on Visions of the Emerald Beyond though.

This 'spin off' is definetely also worth checking out; Live In New York by Jan Hammer Group http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/janhammer5

Its sort of the live version of Oh Yeah, which is just awesome

Interesting that you call it a "spin-off," because I always felt this was Jan doing The Mahavishnu Orchestra HIS way after leaving it. I was thinking of bringing The Jan Hammer Group up after getting reamed for calling The MO "rushy and sloppy," because they were neither. They had the same kind of fire, but the ensemble work was tight and their time was steady and rock solid. I saw that band live in an intimate venue and they were smokin'! The live album, "Jan Hammer Group Live in NYC" is indeed a burning album; unfortunately it was released as a download only.

[No Pride]

[Steve F.]

for those who don't believe, including young Ian.

2:54

Recorded August 1972. No one was sounding like this then.

If you don't hear it here, then I'm not going to convince you. Listen to Cobham and his amazing drumming and the amazing sound he got out of those drums (yeah, it's big dick drumming, but they were a band about showing off their big dicks; that's something else that they pioneered, really, at least post the original bebop era), and the clever way he cuts across JM's and JG's solos, making you think they are ending 2 bars earlier than they are at that point.



Again, if that ain't gonna convince you, then ok, but it's there. Man, it's all there!

And maybe it's for the best that they came, they saw and they conquered and then went off and did other things in under 3 years.

They couldn't possibly have kept this standard up. IMO.

[JJ88]

^That's the first track I ever heard of theirs and it knocked me out.

[Steve F.]

^That's the first track I ever heard of theirs and it knocked me out.

It's not my favorite track (although it knocks me out too), but no one can say there were incapable of being precise. The Ramones had longer songs (not many, but a couple)...

[Shadow]

There is a nice show on Dime from Boston 1972 with good sound samples.

[zombywoof]

for those who don't believe, including young Ian.

2:54

"Shun the nonbelievers!"



Yeah, these guys were obviously great. As I said, I enjoy Inner Mounting Flame quite a bit - "Meeting of the Spirits" is one of the all time great debut openers, IMO. I have Birds of Fire (and was familiar with this tune as soon as it started). I guess what I meant when I said "not particularly memorable" was not that I don't like the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but rather that I'm not a huge fan. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why.

It does seem that, at least on the debut album (which I'm listening to at the moment), the actual compositions were really, really good, so that may have something to do with it. I've always preferred my jazz and fusion to be more based in composition than improvisation (and it seems the Mahavishnu Orchestra got further down the path that probably lead to people like Al DiMeola - shred as many notes as quickly and precisely as possible - and I love Elegant Gypsy, don't get me wrong - it's just not the type of stuff I usually reach for.)

I remember reading the story that Frank Zappa (my musical hero since I was 15) decided to 'up his game' in the early 70s because Mahavishnu meant they were no longer the hottest band on the circuit. This is actually why I bought these records "better than Frank Zappa - this I have to hear!" I wonder if I had discovered them under different circumstances (say now), would my opinion be different?

PS - "Noonward Race" is a pretty fun track, isn't it?

[Steve F.]

Hey.
Not everyone likes everything. I didn't like MO at the time and that's why, to my immense regret, I never saw the original band, while all my high school buddies saw them 2-4 times.

And I remember reading some pretty uncharitable comments FZ made about the original MO.

p.s. One of the shows I didn't see, but my pals all did, was in Philadelphia when the Overnite Sensation band played on the same bill as the MO....

[Scrotum Scissor]

p.s. One of the shows I didn't see, but my pals all did, was in Philadelphia when the Overnite Sensation band played on the same bill as the MO....

Oh fucking hellfire!

I personally rate the MO as one of the primary artists that set the records straight as far as my own perception of "rock virtuosity" goes. Back when I first encountered their music, I had just adapted to the standards of the UK progressive greats (meaning the 'usual' ones), accepting their instrumental virtues as an uppermost imaginable endpoint of supreme skill and determination. And then here were MO, and soon the wonders of Magma, Area, mid-70s Zap/Mothers - eventually a path leading to a Tipographica or Woodson's Ellipsis or Zs. They all completely blew off the safety hatch from my expectations as concerned sheer prowess in modern electric music.

[ytserush]

Oh fucking hellfire!

I personally rate the MO as one of the primary artists that set the records straight as far as my own perception of "rock virtuosity" goes. Back when I first encountered their music, I had just adapted to the standards of the UK progressive greats (meaning the 'usual' ones), accepting their instrumental virtues as an uppermost imaginable endpoint of supreme skill and determination. And then here were MO, and soon the wonders of Magma, Area, mid-70s Zap/Mothers - eventually a path leading to a Tipographica or Woodson's Ellipsis or Zs. They all completely blew off the safety hatch from my expectations as concerned sheer prowess in modern electric music.

Amen!

[profusion]

One thing I would say is that MO was the first band to really bring the ROCK into jazz/rock in a big way. Earlier fusion groups were more like jazz combos who simply picked up electric instruments and carried on much as before (albeit sometimes playing more ethereal music than '60s post-bop). MO's early NYC club gigs in 1971 were very influential; a lot of jazz musicians (such as Chick Corea) saw those gigs and realized the possibilities.

[Dave (in MA)]

Inner Worlds

The songs on this one don't get better if you put the CD away for a few years, oddly enough.

[Steve F.]

One thing I would say is that MO was the first band to really bring the ROCK into jazz/rock in a big way. Earlier fusion groups were more like jazz combos who simply picked up electric instruments and carried on much as before (albeit sometimes playing more ethereal music than '60s post-bop). MO's early NYC club gigs in 1971 were very influential; a lot of jazz musicians (such as Chick Corea) saw those gigs and realized the possibilities.

Well said.

[Onomatopoeic]

Never heard Inner Worlds.

It's pretty good if you skip the vocal tracks, albeit somewhat dated.

Yes, Inner Worlds is pretty good (minus the vocal-based tracks) and *essential* Mahavishnu Orchestra. I recall some of the reviews of Inner Worlds, back when it was released, were usually short and negative, often mentioning the words "sacrilege" or "sinful."

The guitar synth that was introduced with this album was played on the most advanced guitar synth system of that time (1975), the ill-fated 360 System.

[Tangram]

Are there any fans of the 80s Mahavishnu? I got my hands on the Adventures in Radio Land album years ago and I was so meh about it that I never investigated them further.

Major disappointment in Adventures in Radio Land . Never looked any further. MK II is my favorite.

[Onomatopoeic]

I have this BBC concert video with Noonward Race on DVD. It starts of with McLaughlin struggling a bit with his ES-1275, then it just sort of explodes.






A couple of years later and with Jean Luc-Ponty on violin this time, an interesting version of Dawn from their first album)...

[Zeuhlmate]

I heard an incarnation of them in the 80'ties where I just had to leave.

Jack Bruce was so drunk he couldnt find the microphone stand right in front of him, Stu Goldberg was perfectly boring, Cobham was like a happy boy in a drum shop, and McLaughlin showed us how fast he could play on a banjo - and that was the drop...

[pb2015]

Major disappointment in Adventures in Radio Land . Never looked any further.

I heard it once when it was new. Just 80's fusion, nothing to do with the previous versions of Mahavishnu.

[Dave (in MA)]

I heard an incarnation of them in the 80'ties where I just had to leave.

Jack Bruce was so drunk he couldnt find the microphone stand right in front of him, Stu Goldberg was perfectly boring, Cobham was like a happy boy in a drum shop, and McLaughlin showed us how fast he could play on a banjo - and that was the drop...

As far as I can tell from googling, that would have been in 1979.

[Phlakaton]

(yeah, it's big dick drumming, but they were a band about showing off their big dicks; that's something else that they pioneered, really, .

THIS is the reason I love them so much. Nobody could wave it around like that... nobody. I say that being about as big a Zappa fan as you can be too. :P

[Steve F.]

Great sales slogan for SONY when they don't do the box set that they aren't doing:

"THE MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA

Because nobody could wave it around like they did!"