John McLaughlin - The Montreux Concerts discs 1-4
It’s not a surprise that a 17 disc set would go under the radar, especially after the Miles Davis Montreux set which was up to 20, with very few of them being worthwhile to anyone but a fan of the 80s and 90s bands. The McLaughlin set, while it starts around the same time, is far more diverse, featuring a wide array of projects from Mk II Mahavishnu through Remember Shakti as well as a bonus disc featuring a few neat rarities. But for a fan in my shoes, it’s the early music that makes this so worthwhile and in the quality you have these recording here, finally people, or at least people with a lot of disposable income or a nice friend, will be able to hear why so much of McLaughlin’s music shone better in the moment than in the studio.
Take the Mark II Mahavishnu orchestra for an example. It’s clear by following the live recordings that the Mark I band started out hot and then had a dissipation of chemistry as the group went through various personnel issues. Compare the band’s Syracuse performance from the very early days to the European tour sessions in 1972 and you can see the energy and telepathy levels drop as each gig becomes an individual wank session. Mark II, while not having any records up to the level of Inner Mounting Flame of Birds of Fire (I suppose you could argue that Visions of the Emerald Beyond is close) seems to have been a much more impressive live unit, this Montreux group at an 11 piece really brings the house down, not a difficult feat when you have people like Jean-Luc Ponty and McLaughlin himself as soloists. There’s an energy here missing from the last few years that makes me wonder why I never bothered to track down any other late Mahavishnu shoes, clearly they could really deliver. Thus, the opening two discs of this set, like the Miles Davis box, deliver at just about the 11 level, with some room to grow.
But it gets better. The original Shakti could be one of the great live bands in history. While there was a BBC Concert release in very small quantities on vinyl at one point, for the most part live Shakti has been left to live show collectors and the Remember band, which to my ears sounds tepid in comparison to this group. I’ve been lucky enough to hear and see various Shakti shows from Pori, Finland to the United States, and I’ve never heard them in anything but top form, tight as a pulled bowstring. This Montreux show is no different except for the sound quality which is near perfect. You get Joy, India, Nata, and Kriti all played nearly flawlessly by some of the most brilliant musicians in the business. I loved the Mahavishnu show, but something like this is way up into the stratospheric grades, I could go anything from a 12 to 15 on this show, just like any of their others.