John McLaughlin: Underrated, overrated or just about right?

[StevegSr]

If I could play lead guitar (lost my the tip of left index finger and surprisingly sound just like Tony Iommi), I would like to play like John McLaughlan. I think he's more unknown then underrated in the rock world. When I saw him play live with Mahavishnu Orchestra, he and the band blew my mind. What do think about JM?

[JeffCarney]

"About right" for my money.

Brilliant player with boatloads of passion and reach.

Unfortunately, when speaking of his rise to fame in the original MO, these things are also true (IMO):

Lacks discipline.
Often questionable intonation.
Sometimes used absolutely awful tones.

[StevegSr]

"About right" for my money.

Brilliant player with boatloads of passion and reach.

Unfortunately, when speaking of his rise to fame in the original MO, these things are also true (IMO):

Lacks discipline.
Often questionable intonation.
Sometimes used absolutely awful tones.

Ha, ha.. sounds like me. That's probably why I love him.

[chalkpie]

I have a world of respect for the guy but honestly he is not the type of player that does it for me. When I listen to him there is a certain amount of enjoyment, but I really don't actively seek him out. Not a huge MO fan to be honest.

I do like the Shakti and Remembering Shakti albums the most of the stuff that he has done.

[Zeuhlmate]

Before and including the first 2 incarnations of Mahavishnu + Shakti: Outstanding and ground breaking!
But I havent really heard anything after that I liked.
Belo Horizonte is a bit fascinating because its so clean and perfectionistic, but it gets boring.

His electric guitarsound is almost always pretty awful / raw, but it works in the context.

[Enid]

A brilliant innovative guitarist that combined music from India with Jazz Fusion ....in such a way....that it differed quite extremely (IMO), from when other's had momentarily attempted it in the past. John McLaughlin was extremely fast, clean, precise, and full of passion in his playing. He progressed further with his improvisation on "The Heart Of Things". I spent hours as a teenager trying to copy his riffs and long extensive note patterns. I played drums as a child and gave it up to concentrate full time on guitar. I applied my right hand picking picking technique with a percussive manner. When I learned his leads on Birds Of Fire and Inner Mounting Flame, I applied my right hand in the same way I did when I used it for a drum stick. I held my right hand away from the neck without resting it on the pick up board and discovered that it felt natural to play his solos that way. His picking was percussive and very pronounced like an attack. It was possible to play his leads very clean like that and it offered the opportunity to build up the speed as well.

[StevegSr]

Before and including the first 2 incarnations of Mahavishnu + Shakti: Outstanding and ground breaking!


His electric guitarsound is almost always pretty awful / raw, but it works in the context.

You hit it right on the nose! Prior to and the first two MO's were incredible, but when I dragged my brother (who could play anyting by ear and match tones perfectly)to a MO concert, he thought JM sounded awful and he was like WTF?

I never could explain why I liked JM and never will.

[Enid]

His playing was often technical because it required stretching the fingers of your left hand and conditioning awkward positions to be played at a rapid speed .

[StevegSr]

His playing was often technical because it required stretching the fingers of your left hand and conditioning awkward positions to be played at a rapid speed .

Yes exactly, and that was something I knew I could never do. Even my brother was never a technical player and he did comment often on JM's speed and dexterity while still sounding dismissive about him.

[Facelift]

Underrated as a jazz player.

Possibly overrated as a rock player.

Maybe about right elsewhere.

[StevegSr]

Underrated as a jazz player.

Possibly overrated as a rock player.

Maybe about right elsewhere.

And where the hell is elsewhere?

[GuitarGeek]

I love his playing on In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

I used to have the Friday Night In San Francisco album by Johnny Mac, Al D, and Senor Paco. That was a good album, though like with Mahavishnu Orchestra, they sometimes got a little carried away with the 32nd and 64th notes.

Apart from that one album, and John McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist, I haven't heard too much of his post mid 70's work. I remember it being a big deal when he put together the new version of Mahavishnu Orchestra together in the mid 80's, though I don't think I really heard much of it. I do remember everyone talking bout him using the Synclavier guitar synth system at the time.

Always thought the Rex Bogue Double Rainbow doubleneck was a cool looking guitar, thought I imagine it was a bitch to play.

[StevegSr]

I love his playing on In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

I used to have the Friday Night In San Francisco album by Johnny Mac, Al D, and Senor Paco. That was a good album, though like with Mahavishnu Orchestra, they sometimes got a little carried away with the 32nd and 64th notes.


Always thought the Rex Bogue Double Rainbow doubleneck was a cool looking guitar, thought I imagine it was a bitch to play.

Yeah, jazz guys are silly like that, and the double neck always looked like an electric harp!

[Facelift]

And where the hell is elsewhere?

The majority of what he did (fusion)

[StevegSr]

The majority of what he did (fusion)

Good, I thought you going say AOR.

[Enid]

Underrated as a jazz player.

Possibly overrated as a rock player.

Maybe about right elsewhere.

This

[Enid]

Yes exactly, and that was something I knew I could never do. Even my brother was never a technical player and he did comment often on JM's speed and dexterity while still sounding dismissive about him.

You could do it by practicing Andrea Segovia's book of scales which conditions you to use the left hand in awkward positions and also gets you familiar with the jump system.. Most or all of those extended major and minor scales run from the bottom of the neck to the top and back. The idea of playing those scales for hours is to build up dexterity in the left and right hand by alternating the fingering of the right hand each time you play a scale and conditioning for the left hand to handle the jump system and awkward positions. Try this with a pick to master McLaughlin.

[GuitarGeek]

Yeah, jazz guys are silly like that, and the double neck always looked like an electric harp!

I would tend to feel it's more the fusion guys who are "silly like that", rather than jazz players. If you listen to someone like Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessell, or even someone like Pat Metheny, they don't go overboard with the flashy playing the way the fusion guys do.

[Reid]

Apart from that one album, and John McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist, I haven't heard too much of his post mid 70's work.

There's a lot of good stuff, especially his acoustic playing. The two late 70s Shakti studio albums. 1981's Belo Horizonte where he played acoustic with a jazz combo. The trio with Trilok Gurtu and Kai Eckardt was phenomenal. They made one live and one studio album. And he had a great electric band in the late 90s with Matthew Garrison, Gary Thomas, Dennis Chambers. The Heart Of Things:Live In Paris is a good document of that band. But in the past 10 years it's been sounding kind of samey on most of the albums. But there's the Five Peace Band 2 disc set w/ Corea, McBride, Colaiuta, and Kenny Garrett which is worth picking up.

[moecurlythanu]

Well, I don't know. But I hear he's really got a thing for porridge.

[PROGMONSTER]

I always thought he had a messy sound on electric guitar in the early 70s. Bit hard to enjoy although possibly the most talented guitarist ever.

[Svetonio]

I still do love first two Mahavishnu albums and also his Electric Guitarist (1978) album as well.







One of the greatest guitarists of 1970s progressive fusion, although I agree with those who say that his guitar can sound irritating sometimes.
Also, I love his work at sublime Miles' fusion masterpiece In A Silent Way

[Conti]

I think he is rated just about right. I enjoy his seventies' output with Mahavishnu and Shakti, as well as some of his solo records like Belo Horizonte. However his "too many notes per second" approach is sometimes pointless and plain boring to me.

A couple of years ago I attended one of his concerts in London and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, the opening act (Hedvig Mollestaad) was much more fun, musical, and lively to me.

[Trane]

Personally, I find little to criticize in his pre-75 career, whether with Davis, Williams, MO, his own solo career (Devotion or the Santana album), and a little less so starting with Shakti (which I still like very much), but I place the dip's hinge around Electric Guitarist/Dreams era and the fall of interest right around Horizonte.
Outside his acoustic guitar trios (which I always pregered with Corryell,rtather rthan with ADM), I don't find much interesting in his 80/90/00/10's solo discography except for the fairly recent Five Peace Band.

"About right" for my money.

Brilliant player with boatloads of passion and reach.

Unfortunately, when speaking of his rise to fame in the original MO, these things are also true (IMO):

Lacks discipline.
Often questionable intonation.
Sometimes used absolutely awful tones.

Actually, I find the flaws you cite to be truer from the later 70's onwards (notably his Synclavier dabbling)

I have a world of respect for the guy but honestly he is not the type of player that does it for me. When I listen to him there is a certain amount of enjoyment, but I really don't actively seek him out. Not a huge MO fan to be honest.

I do like the Shakti and Remembering Shakti albums the most of the stuff that he has done.

In recent decades, it will really depend on with whom he's playing with...

And where the hell is elsewhere?

Hellsewhere?? µ

==============

Now, whether he's over/under/even rated, I don't really care too much as it's all too subjective to be having a really meaningful conversation;

[Scrotum Scissor]

Before and including the first 2 incarnations of Mahavishnu + Shakti: Outstanding and ground breaking! But I havent really heard anything after that I liked. [...] His electric guitarsound is almost always pretty awful / raw, but it works in the context.

I'm pretty much in agreement. I still love his playing on the first three MOs and that Shakti album I've got, but I remember keeping Love Devotion Surrender on cassette bought from a fleemarket by my dad when I was little, and on returning to that after having discovered McLaughlin later I found the thing absolutely terribly self-indulgent, dull and meandering.

I loved seeing him at NattJazz in my hometown (Bergen, Norway) sometime in the mid-90s, though. He had Dennis Chambers on drums and some other celeb on keys, and they were immensely great. Still I never bought any of his releases beyond Shakti.