Listening to Mahavishnu "Lost Trident Sessions" today

[Carltone]

and driving the co-workers nuts!

hahaha!

What an intense and incredible group of musicians...
I need to practice a little more... like an eternity! to get to the level these guys were at in their teens...

what a super group!

 

[2HBStrat]

Well, how was it? How does it compare to their official releases?

 

[small axe]

john McLaughlin and his crew are jazzy

 

[Carltone]

Well, how was it? How does it compare to their official releases?

It's an official release that was never released...until 25 or so years after they broke up... excellent recording quality and remastered in 1999.
Apparently, the Orchestra couldn't agree on much when this was recorded... Some thought it was fine as is, others wanted to overdub parts... "I'm sick of you" attitude, "I'm exhausted"...etc.... the liner notes runs down the history of it... some of the work is stellar... in other places I can hear where some people may have wanted more...but overall~ I dig it mightily!

Cobham is off the charts! John is ferocious! Goodman is a good man! Hammer is a freaking Hammer! Laird is solid... and grooves with pinpoint accuracy!

 

[Carltone]

john McLaughlin and his crew are jazzy

I don't know... I'd say they are more post-Miles, pre-Fusion, Pre-Neo-Natal-Classical with a wiff of cathardic pre-punk and angst rock... than jazzy

 

[KRosser]

I always felt Mahavishnu had more in common with prog-rock than 'fusion' in many ways...

 

[joseph]

Laird in an interview, when it was mentioned that he didn't play flashy like the rest, said "Someone has to play the '1' ".

 

[Marble]

I'm a big fan of MO '71-'73. Nothing like them. I find it really regrettable that Between Nothingness and Eternity was released instead of this studio album. The tracks on here are so cohesive and excellent cuts. The performances on the live album are just sloppy and exhausted, and quite frankly the sound quality and mixing sound like crap to my ears.

The studio version of Dream is very excellent, as is Trilogy, and I don't think anyone can doubt that Sister Andrea sounds sick here. When Jerry Goodman breaks into his solo in the studio version, that's the stuff. Cobham bringing the funk big time, like he might do on Spectrum, also from around that same time.

The two quieter tracks are pretty haunting and enjoyable, and John's Song is pretty in your face out of control prog-metal almost. If they would have developed that one some more it would have really become a stunner. Too bad these remarkable musicians had to let ego get in their way.

 

[brain21]

I always felt Mahavishnu had more in common with prog-rock than 'fusion' in many ways...

OK, so your sig says you are an instructor at GIT, and this is a Mahavishnu thread, so here goes....

I went to MI back in Sept '88-'89. Right during the peak of the yin & ynags of Metal - Sunset Strip Glam rock, and Yngwie Malmsteen

So I went in there not liking jazz. I left not liking jazz. I like jazz now. Not because I matured, or grew to like it. I actually did enjoy the big-band sessions during lunch in P-100 (do they still do that?). But partially cause no one there (teachers, students, and alumni in my apartment building alike) ever turned me on to Mahavishnu and THAT kind of fusion. So my big question is WHY NOT? I mean I never even heard the name Mahavishnu Orchestra mentioned. I first heard them a year or two after I left and was blown away and IMMEDIATELY thought "why did I never hear of this at MI? This is amazing ****!"

Now, when I was there, jazz was ALL about that west-coast Fuzak sound. The guitar players had monstrous fridge-sized rigs that they needed to get that completely cold, overchorused and slightly delayed sound (Ugh, it was awful - even then when it was hip I hated it - the crux of the Fuzak biscuit, so to speak!). We used to say back then (I hung out with mostly metal and blues guys, and more traditional jazz & funk guys) "I don't need Scott Henderson to teach me how to play wrong" - in regards to the penchant at the time for outside playing.... where it wasn't necessarily fitting. But had I heard McLaughlin's outside playing in Mahavishnu back then, I would have gotten it. It would have clicked.

I also had to learn of Uli Jon Roght from my downstairs neighbor who was an Uli freak. No one there, even the Yngwie clones, mentioned Uli. In fact outside of my little circle of friends that only ones that I ever talked to about Uli who had actually heard of him and were familiar with his music, were Jason Becker and Marty Friedman.

Never heard of Django until after MI. There wasn't even any Gypsy Jazz in any of the curriculums. There was NOTHING on Dixieland Swing jazz either. Thats some jazz I could have gotten into if I were exposed to it (and I got into later when I was).

So the point is, why (and you may very well not know the answer(s)) was the jazz program almost solely focused on the soul-less Fuzak stuff that admittedly was popular at the time, but such a narrow view, with brief nods every now and then in classes like Fingerboard Harmony to the "standards" and is it better now?

Not saying I disliked it or harbor any ill feelings. My year there may very well have been the best year of my life. Definitely the best year of my life as far as music was concerned. If I won the lottery tomorrow I would quit my job, and move myself and wife out there for a year so I could do it again 20 years later! In a heartbeat. Just hoping that the school is exposing the kids to more stuff than it used to, at least as far as jazz styles go.

 

[Marble]

that's a good post brain. I guess you really have to always be searching, I wouldn't count on learning about a great band like that from a great music school, even Berklee. I was really lucky to come across the MO, and they definitely have changed my music outlook and all that.

Basically my dad turned me on to the Allman Brothers when I started playing. Then I read that Duane, Dickey and the guys used to love listening to Miles and Trane. Then I picked up some Miles and Trane records (I really gravitated to Miles more at first). In the liner notes of Kind of Blue they talk about Duane and go off on a big thing about that. Very surprising, but really cool. Then I found In A Silent Way (which the ABB loved) and Bitches Brew. Well Bitches Brew turned me on my head, and hearing John McLaughlin on those records, I wanted to hear his own stuff. So then I picked up The Inner Mounting Flame, and bam. It was cool to learn alot on my way to finding the MO, and for awhile I didn't have a clue what they were even doing, but I still enjoyed it. I would have never counted on anyone that I've encountered through the years to turn me on to them, maybe one or two friends may have. You gotta dig for that good stuff.

 

[muffinman]

Lost Trident Sessions may be the best recording/composition/performance of any incarnation of Mahavishnu Orchestra, IMHO it certainly can run with Inner Mounting Flame & Birds of Fire no problem, and yeah "John's Song" is just flat-out SICK.

 

[trickness]

Just fired it up on MOG - thanks for the post!

 

[Dennis Rayburn]

I've always loved the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Love Birds of Fire and Between Nothingness...

I'm going to have to give the Lost Trident Sessions a listen.

 

[brain21]

One of the great things about the Trident Sessions is that it has a real live feel to it. I mean they just JAM! I swear the first couple of times I listened to it I was taken aback by how quiet the audience was at the end of the songs, only to remember a split-second later "Oh yeah, this is a studio album"

And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the sound. This album definitely sounds studio-great. In fact, IIRC this has a better sound to my ears than the rest of the M.O. studio albums. What I'm talking about here is the jam vibe, the live feeling of the record. I don't remember if it says in the liner notes, but I'd lay money that this was recorded live in the studio and not all separate and via overdubs.

Speaking of which, a while back the drummer for The Mahavishnu Project (and M.O. tribute band, and they are great too!) was working with the record company to remaster I think Inner Mounting Flame, and it was going to be release with a bonus disc of the famous Cleveland bootleg, professionally remastered as well. Anyone know if that ever happened? I haven't been IN a record store that would carry this stuff in many years, and I never think to look it up... But I'd love to get a really nice pro-remaster of that Cleveland show!

 

[jimfog]

I always felt Mahavishnu had more in common with prog-rock than 'fusion' in many ways...

I actually think of it as almost Punk Rock......with the amps buzzing, the energy, the occasional sloppiness in the service of something greater than just a bunch of guys playing music.

Most "fusion" bores me to tears........M.O. kicks my ass.

 

[KRosser]

I actually think of it as almost Punk Rock......with the amps buzzing, the energy, the occasional sloppiness in the service of something greater than just a bunch of guys playing music.

Most "fusion" bores me to tears........M.O. kicks my ass.

That's funny, I remember when someone played me The Sex Pistols for the first time in the late 70's, saying it was all about this raw kinetic energy and I remember thinking, "this ****'s got nothing on Mahavishnu"