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Birds Of Fire

Essay of a Jazz Artist- John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin was born on January 4, 1942 in Yorkshire, England. He is one of the greatest jazz-fusion guitarists of all time. He specializes in Jazz, Indian classical music, Fusion and Flamenco. Even today he is an active musician, releasing his latest composition in 2006 called Industrial Zen and in 2007 he began to tour with his new jazz fusion quartet the 4TH Dimension.
John McLaughlin began his career in England in the 1960’s when he recorded the album Extrapolation. In the late 1960’s John moved across the pond from England to New York where he signed a recording contract for two albums. The first was called Devotion and the second was his first acoustic album My Goal’s Beyond that was inspired by the spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy and it was from this Indian spiritual leader that John McLaughlin adopted the name “Mahavishnu”. From there had the opportunity to work with Miles Davis’ on a couple of recording like In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, On The Big Corner, and Big Fun and Live-Evil. In the 1970’s John McLaughlin formed a guitar fusion band called the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Which included such artists as Jerry Goodman on electric violin, Billy Cobbham on drums, Rick Laird on electric bass, Jan Hammer on both keyboard and moog, and of course John McLaughlin on electric guitar. In 1971 they recorded The Inner Mounting Flame and in 1973 they recorded Birds of Fire, The Lost Trident Secessions and Between Nothingness and Eternity. In 1974 some members of the band were replaced and they recorded Apocalypse and in 1975 Visions of Emerald and in 1976 Beyond Inner Words. In 1973 McLaughlin worked with today’s very popular artist Carlos Santana, and wrote Love Devotion Surrender.
The album that I listen to was Mahavishnu Orchestra’s
Birds of Fire as stated above it was made it 1973 and manufactured by Columbia Records/CBS Inc. . It was such a great album. I listened to it about eight times throughout my research and...