#JohnMcLaughlin has announced

John McLaughlin has announced his final U.S. tour. He's calling next year's concerts among his last in America: https://t.co/Eg57P3xs2N pic.twitter.com/4VOFXpUlI7

— DownBeat Magazine (@DownBeatMag) October 4, 2016

"Interplay & interaction ....

"Interplay & interaction are integral parts of #Jazz #music; important as the notes" John McLaughlin

— A Passion for Jazz!® (@APassion4Jazz) August 5, 2016

John McLaughlin - Black Light

Saturday, 14 November 2015 21:56
Written by  Rob Mallows

Six-string maestro proves age is no barrier to innovation and creativity.
Now well into in his eighth decade, Doncaster's own John McLaughlin is still in the vanguard of guitarists who stretch our understanding of what that instrument can do. This new album, with eight new McLaughlin-penned tracks, shows that he’s still as vital a part of the modern jazz scene as ever and producing quality music.

For this album, McLaughlin has stuck with his pals from 4th Dimension, each of whom is a stand-out performer in his own right. Not least, for example, drummer Gary Husband, who is I think one of the great drummers of the last twenty years. He’s joined by Cameroonian bassist Etienne Mbappe (who, incidentally, will be performing with his own band at the London Jazz Festival) and drummer Ranjit Barot. This is in fact their third album working and touring together as a group.

The album reflects McLaughlin’s unarguable virtuosity, and also in places the Indian classical musical influence on his performance. There’s plenty of evident passion coursing through each track and a variety of moods.

First track, Here Comes The Jiis, immediately demonstrates in the rhythms and title an homage to one of McLaughlin’s other touring groups, the indian-influenced Shakti. After a quiet start McLaughlin’s guitar meshes beautifully with Barot’s hard drumming style, giving this album a start as frenetic as the race for the first corner in F1. One can hear the connecting dots on the stave stretching back to his seventies Mahavishnu Orchestra days. Second track, the intriguingly titled Clap Your Hand, maintains the starting pace and introduces a feature of 4th Dimension’s live sets, the use of Indian sung rhythms, or Konnokol, by Barot, which provides an interesting alternative to a drum solo. 


Third track Being You Being Me starts off with just keyboards and synths, emphasising the vital duel role that Husband plays in the band through his awesomely inventive keyboard works alongside his drum work. The track then moves into a slower paced guitar melody, a little softer in tone but still evidently McLaughlin.

read more: http://www.kindofjazz.com/index.php/component/k2/253-john-mclaughlin-black-light

Egberto Gismonti e John McLaughlin - Frevo

Jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin plays for Palestine

By John Davison
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The Palestinian territories are rarely a destination for jazz musicians let alone stars of an art form that is more at home in big cities such as New York and Chicago.

Which makes the performance of jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin before a packed auditorium in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday night all the more remarkable.

McLaughlin toured areas of the West Bank before enthralling the mostly local audience who attended his "solidarity concert" for Palestinians with a fusion of Western and Eastern sounds.

The 72-year-old British musician, who has recorded with the likes of late jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, said proceeds from the concert would go to a local NGO.

"People here are isolated... and the situation is such that since very few people can leave, it's important that people from the outside come in," he told AFP.

Palestinians "don't have freedom, they don't even have passports... it's lamentable that an entire people are in such a situation. So I feel it incumbent upon myself to make other people aware of it," McLaughlin said.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/jazz-guitar-legend-john-mclaughlin-plays-palestine-075251573.html
 

Music DVD Review: Carlos Santana And John McLaughlin - 'Invitation To Illumination

By Wesley Britton, BLOGCRITICS.ORG
Published 10:00 pm, Saturday, August 17, 2013

Back in 1973, Love Devotion Surrender was an unevenly received jazz fusion collaboration between Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, as he was calling himself at the time, and Carlos Santana. In a sense, McLaughlin was the senior partner of the pair. Three years before introducing Santana to his spiritual master, McLaughlin had become a disciple of the guru Sri Chinmoy, from whom he got the name Mahavishnu. Both his second solo album, My Goal's Beyond (1973) as well as Love Devotion Surrender were dedicated to Chinmoy. Both included writings from Chinmoy on the covers, and, on the latter, he is seen on the back photo with his hands on the shoulders of his two white-suited disciples, McLaughlin and the new convert, Santana.

Musically, McLaughlin was also the leader of the partnership. Santana, of course, was the guitarist for the Latin-rock band named after him with several hit albums and a memorable appearance at Woodstock in his resume. At the time, McLaughlin was a pioneer of the sub-genre of jazz-rock fusion with stints with Miles Davis and the Tony Williams Lifetime behind him. He was the leader of The Mahavishnu Orchestra and was famous for his double-necked guitar-one six-string, one twelve.

While Love Devotion Surrender was dedicated to Chinmoy, it was also clearly a tribute to jazz giant John Coltrane. As such, Santana was venturing into McLaughlin's playground even as many of the players on the five extended tracks drew both from The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Santana's own group. The final result, produced by both McLaughlin and Santana, ended up pleasing the jazz fusion crowd more than Santana's rock base, and even in the more high-brow world of jazz enthusiasts, the experiment met with mixed critical response.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Music-DVD-Review-Carlos-Santana-And-John-4742135.php

John McLaughlin: On Coltrane And Spirituality In Music

John McLaughlin recorded To the One with his 4th Dimension band, from left: Mark Mondesir, Gary Husband, McLaughlin and Etienne M'Bappe. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

by NPR Staff

Guitarist John McLaughlin never saw saxophonist John Coltrane perform. The jazz icon died in 1967, before McLaughlin had the chance. But Coltrane's historic 1965 album A Love Supreme has inspired every twist and turn of McLaughlin's career since he first heard it.

"It took me, actually, a year of listening to that record almost every day to finally hear what [Coltrane] was doing musically," McLaughlin says. "The least I can say is that he was very advanced, as a human being and a musician.

"The second thing, and perhaps the more significant, was the poem on the back of the album — the LP, in those days," McLaughlin says. "This record arrived in my hands at a very significant time in my life, when I was starting to ask myself these fundamental questions about life and death, existence — you know, the big questions we all address to ourselves sooner or later.

This poem had such a wonderful effect on me. It was so inspiring and encouraging to me as a young seeker at that time, that I knew the music was really, in a more elegant and eloquent way, speaking about what he wrote about. But I couldn't hear it."

Complete on  ..  http://www.npr.org/2011/01/02/132487200/john-mclaughlin-on-coltrane-and-spirituality-in-music?ft=1&f=1039

Chick Corea & John McLaughlin Release Five Peace Band Live

The new Chick Corea & John McLaughlin live release Five Peace Band Live is available on 2-CD today 4.28.09 via Concord Records.
Five Peace Band Live, was recorded during Corea & McLaughlin’s European tour last fall. The double-disc CD was originally made available early at performance venues on tour during March as well as via the band’s website, and is now fully available.

The entire album is available to stream at Chick Corea's official Myspace page.

The album features Corea and McLaughlin’s inspired duets as well as all five members negotiating the twists and turns of the compositions. The recording includes Vinnie Colaiuta – drums, Kenny Garrett – saxophone, Christian McBride – acoustic & electric basses, and Herbie Hancock special guests on the track “In a Silent Way / It’s About That Time.”
Five Peace Band Live is available on 2-CD now.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=34792