John McLaughlin: Ahead of the Nothingness Beyond Eternity

Little could his Kirk Sandall (Yorkshire) neighborhood guess an approaching Apocalypse in the world of cerebral music when John McLaughlin - as a child -was witnessing the classics of Brahms, Beethoven and Stravinsky on the piano. However, elder siblings always remained an inspiration to the younger ones and it's nothing strange that blues and Spanish music directed a young John to the guitar.

Blame it purely on a coincidence or on his enormous appetite to learn and put the same in application, fact remains John picked up a great deal listening to Tal Farlow (even when he was busy earning pocket money through a variety of jobs - from being a delivery driver to music shop sales boy); however, it's still a mystery how his anonymous style matched with the early recordings by later icons like David Bowie and The Rolling Stones. By that time, he had already played with Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Jimmy Paige.

John's turn to spirituality was initiated by both philosophy and theosophy. It was his ascent that took him beyond a mere musical excellence that at most, could bring him just commercial aspirations, like his fellow axe-wielders. He found his Emerald Beyond with Miles Davis' In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. This particular exposure played a key role in making John one of the biggest honchos in the jazz guitar world and the new jazz-rock movement (fathered by Davis himself) took him in a swirl of popularity and financial success; it was necessary to create the platform for launching his phenomenal career. Lifetime (with the Davis' alumni Tony Williams and Larry Young) thus saw the daylight and grew stronger with Jack Bruce joining the force. The quartet eventually became the most exciting band of that particular era.

It was then when John's musical vision crossed the path of spirituality; after moving to the US, he found his spiritual name of MahaVishnu through an Indian spiritual teacher (Sri Chinmoy). The name translates to The Great Creator (Maha=Great and Vishnu=the Hindu God of Creation; a part of the Holy Trinity in Hinduism). That paved the way for the Mahavishnu Orchestra - the creators of high spirit music.

Arguably, the most powerful fusion/jazz-rock band, Mahavishnu Orchestra blended together the dazzling virtuosity of hard-bop jazz with ferocious and polyrhythmic rock, with overtones of burning, spiritual aspiration. The chemistry; however, owes more to the like mindedness of the participating musicians, namely - Billy Cobham on drums, Jan Hammer on keyboards, Jerry Goodman on violin and Rick Laird on bass guitar. John's trademark Gibson twin-necked SG guitar now faced the real recognition, which was long due for teaching Jimmy Paige of Led Zeppelin the intro chords to My Funny Valentine; it was from there that the extrapolation for the Stairway to Heaven chord sequence took form.

What followed is a blazing trail left by astounding releases one after the other: Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire and Between Nothingness & Eternity (Live). The live recording was what that brought the original, two-year old line-up to an end. It was 1973; the same year when another recording got lost amidst a pile in the Trident Studios in London. McLaughlin, later, commented in retrospect: "Of course, by the time we finished that recording, there was a lot of dissonance in the band, discontent...just really shit. What a shame! But I have a tendency to forget the bad things. I remember the good things. And we made some unbelievable music. We had some nights that were colossal...just amazing, phenomenal! And I've got that...these memories in my mind. And I'm happy with that." - after it was released commercially in 1999, by Sony music. However, the fact that the recording was forgotten for 26 long years was because of the conflict that delayed its release and a break-up of the original lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. But the primary success made McLaughlin to push ahead with a reincarnation of the band; this time, it was in full string quartets and brass along with Goodman's replacement Jean Luc Ponty; Narada Michael Walden in place of Cobham and an extraordinary 17 year-old named Ralph Armstrong on bass. Apocalypse in 1974 and Visions of the Emerald Beyond a year later were the successful outcomes.

Ponty's involvement ended after this and Inner Worlds had to be recorded without him; this marked McLaughlin's meandering of course and Indian music caught his interest. Blended with his love for acoustic guitar playing, Shakti emerged in 1975 to make the global audience witness a colossal paradigm shift. The virtuoso Indian violinist L Shankar and an amazing tabla player, Ustad Zakir Hussein took John's love for the blues travel the acoustic path with electrifying power; it's this surge that came out through his electric experimentations with The One Truth Band in 1978.

It's a different story that Mahavishnu returned once again in 1984 with guitar-synths and a fiery bass player (Jonas Hellborg); different, in the sense that it didn't prove a trailblazer like the former two reincarnations. Did John forget the relation between aspiration and realization? To know that, we need to delve deeper into his vast theoretical knowledge and awe-inspiring technical skills that made his past achievements a promise of things to come.