Mahavishnu Orchestra

TeleStrat wrote: (...) Hardly any of my J/R/F albums feature vocals and that's fine with me.

Skullhead wrote: I find the music relaxes me.

Edited by jayem - January 17 2015 at 06:53

Svetonio wrote: TeleStrat wrote: (...) Hardly any of my J/R/F albums feature vocals and that's fine with me.   The most of jazz-rock / fusion is instrumental stuff, but there are also some fantastic jazz-rock / fusion tunes that featured vocals, in various stlyles of the sub-genre; for example Chick Corea's Dear Alice, Return To Forever's What Games Shall We Play Today, Allan Holdsworth's Road Games, Bill Brufford's Adios a la Pasada (Goodbye to the Past), Nick Mason's I'm A Mineralist,  Steely Dan's Aja etc, etc.

^ And Angus is no true Scotsman because he's dissin' Scotch. 

Dayvenkirq wrote: TradeMark0 wrote: ... , but a better is why isn't Soft Machine considered one of the prog giants. I don't understand that part.

I don't give a rat's ass where they rank around here.  For me Apocalypse is one of my top ten prog albums and I hate ranking albums,

Much like early Genesis I am just now discovering Mahavishnu and it blows me away. Birds of Fire is just amazing!

Edited by Jeffro - December 03 2015 at 10:05

I like them but I prefer Weather Report and Dixie Dregs..

dr wu23 wrote: MO were great....period. No fusion band around then or later played with the balls out intensity they did. Superb musicians....everyone a virtuoso and that was part of the problem....too many egos clashing in the band. Apparently Goodman and Laird would go at each other all the time. Their first 2 are the best but even the later ones had fine playing though they never achieved that level of intensity.

- True. It's inevitable that such an incredible band would "out-ego" each other and maybe even outplayed themselves on the first 2 albums-But they definitely made their mark and statement with jazz or fusion, although more in a rock context. Later on down the road makes me think of Return To Forever's fusion masterpiece "Romantic Warrior" -

Mahavishnu is exhausting.....the sheer speed and power of the music is impressive, but sitting thru even one side of the first album is a full body experience.....you need a chaser like the first Weather Report album to soothe your frazzled nerves after the all out sonic assault of MO.  I've been a McLaughlin fan all my life and have a shelf full of his music, but the first two MO albums are the least played among them.....you really have to be in the mood and that mood doesn't pop up very often.  I much prefer Extrapolation, Devotion and My Goal's Beyond from that same time frame.....more melodic, more precise in technique, more soulful, more listenable.  Mahavishnu will always have a place in my collection, but their records will spend less time on my turntable.

Edited by Intruder - December 09 2015 at 09:32