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Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds of Fire

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Artist: Mahavishnu Orchestra
Title: Birds of Fire
Released: 1973
Label: CBS Records
Time: 40:14
Producer(s): The Mahavishnu Orchestra
Appears with: John McLaughlin, Jan Hammer, Billy Cobham, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bill Evans
Category: Jazz
Rating: ***....... (3/10)
Media type: CD
Purchase date:  1997
Price in €: 8,99
Web address:











 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Birds of Fire (John McLaughlin) - 5:41
[2] Miles Beyond (Davis) - 4:39
[3] Celestial Terrestrial Commuters (John McLaughlin) - 2:53
[4] Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love (John McLaughlin) - :22
[5] Thousand Island Park (John McLaughlin) - 3:19
[6] Hope (John McLaughlin) - 1:55
[7] One Word (John McLaughlin) - 9:54
[8] Sanctuary (John McLaughlin) - 5:01
[9] Open Country Joy (John McLaughlin) - 3:52
[10] Resolution (John McLaughlin) - 2:0

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


John McLaughlin - Electric 6 & 12-string guitars, Acoustic guitar
Jerry Goodman - Electric violin
Jan Hammer - Fender Rhodes, Mini-Moog, Piano
Rick Laird - Electric & Acoustic bass
Billy Cobham - Drums, Gong

Ken Scott - Engineer
Jim Green - Engineer

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Highly Recommended

Audio



3 Stars - Good - "...an accurate reflection of the fiery passion and keen sense of urgency felt by a cast of virtuoso musicians rejoicing in the unshakable belief that nothing is impossible..."

Q Magazine 5/92, p.97



Birds of Fire wurde 1973 aufgenommen und von den Musikern John McLaughlin-Guitar, Rick Laird-Bass, Billy Cobham-Percussion, Jerry Goodman-Violin, Jan Hammer-Keyboards, Moog eingespielt. Sie war eine der ersten Platten, die eindrucksvoll die Verschmelzung von Jazz und Rock zelebrierte. Man kann ganz deutlich die Einflüsse wahrnehmen, die zu den hiergebotenen Kompositionen und Sounds geführt haben. Einmal Bitches Brew von Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix' Electric Ladyland, um nur 2 zu nennen, sind ganz deutlich herauszuhören. Trotzdem hat das Mahavishnu Orchestra einen ganz eigenwilligen Sound entwickelt, der meines Erachtens heute noch als modern bezeichnet werden kann und nicht kopierbar ist. Dies ist dem vor allem dem Geiger Jerry Goodman (früher THE FLOCK) zuzuschreiben, der mit seinen elektrisch verzerrten oder mit Wah-Wah Effekten versetzten Geigenfiguren einen ganz speziellen Stempel aufdrückt. Anspieltip : One word. Natürlich hat auch Jan Hammer, mit seinen Moog Sounds, viel zum Erfolg dieser Scheibe beigetragen hat. In den Sechzigern war er Pianist bei Sarah Vaughn, später wurde er noch bekannter durch seine Soloplatten und diverse Filmmusiken u.a. Miami Vice. Insgesamt eine super solide Scheibe, die durch ihre sauber gespielten Unisono-Passagen und atemberaubenden Frage und Antwortspiele besticht. Freunde ruhigeren Jazz kommen bei den Songs Miles Beyond und Thousand Island Park, auch auf ihre Kosten

M.K.



Emboldened by the popularity of Inner Mounting Flame among rock audiences, the first Mahavishnu Orchestra set out to further define and refine its blistering jazz-rock direction in its second -- and, no thanks to internal feuding, last -- studio album. Although it has much of the screaming rock energy and sometimes exaggerated competitive frenzy of its predecessor, Birds of Fire is audibly more varied in texture, even more tightly organized, and thankfully more musical in content. A remarkable example of precisely choreographed, high-speed solo trading -- with John McLaughlin, Jerry Goodman and Jan Hammer all of one mind, supported by Billy Cobham's machine-gun drumming and Rick Laird's dancing bass -- can be heard on the aptly named "One Word," and the title track is a defining moment of the group's nearly atonal fury. The band also takes time out for a brief bit of spaced-out electronic burbling and static called "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love." Yet the most enticing pieces of music on the record are the gorgeous, almost pastoral opening and closing sections to "Open Country Joy," a relaxed, jocular bit of communal jamming that they ought to have pursued further. This album actually became a major crossover hit, rising to No. 15 on the pop album charts, and it remains the key item in the first Mahavishnu Orchestra's slim discography.

Richard S. Ginell, All-Music Guide



Hätte es nicht schon das erste Mahavishnu-Album The Inner Mounting Flame gegeben, dann wäre wohl das 1973 erschienene Birds Of Fire die herausragendste Jazz-Fusion-Platte aller Zeiten geworden. Beide Platten sind stark geprägt von Sinnsuche und Erlösungsthematik. Alles hier ist durchdacht und verströmt Sicherheit. Die phantastischen Leistungen von Keyboarder Jan Hammer, dem Geiger Jerry Goodman, dem Bassisten Rick Laird und dem Wahnsinns-Drummer Billy Cobham werden nur noch übertroffen von der Übergitarre des Bandleaders John McLaughlin. Hier bekommt man die ganze Palette seiner musikalischen Einflüsse zu hören: Tal Farlow, Django Reinharts rasend-schnelle Gitarrenläufe, Flamenco, Delta-Blues, schwerste verzerrte Metal-Gitarren, Anleihen aus der indischen Musik und aus dem Folk. Alles ist hier versammelt und vermischt sich zu einem edlen, kosmischen Gebräu.

Peter Monaghan, Amazon.de



If not for the Mahavishnu Orchestra's first album, The Inner Mounting Flame, this second, 1973 outing might well be considered the greatest of all jazz-fusion essays. Both are staggering calls to celestial coursing and reckoning, and to resolution. All is breathtakingly purposeful and assured, with vast group cohesion, and phenomenal contributions by keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, bassist Rick Laird, torrential drummer Billy Cobham, and foremost, by the leader, guitarist John McLaughlin. One hears all the elements of his musical makeup: Tal Farlow; Django Reinhart's stunning single-note runs; flamenco guitar; sophisticated Delta blues; way-over-the-top arena-rock distortion, feedback, and power amplification; and Indian classical and folk music. All that, plus childhood lessons in classical piano and violin and recent studies with spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, set the cosmic stew to boil.

Peter Monaghan - Amazon.com



McLaughlin and company have been playing as a unit for a little more than a year as of this writing, but from the sound of their most recent performances and especially the new Birds Of Fire it seems they are as attuned to each other as a group of five musicians are ever going to get. McLaughlin, violinist Jerry Goodman and pianist Jan Hammer all command such quick improvisatory skills that when the three trade riffs on amplified instruments it's difficult at first to discern which one is playing. And Billy Cobham's ambidextrous drumming is the current phenomenon of the percussion field. At its core the Mahavishnu Orchestra is a rock & roll band: Its major trick is the infusion of supertechnical improvisatory skills into a rock idiom, but beneath the devotional messages to his guru and the appeals to a mass enlightenment of human consciousness, McLaughlin takes his with the heaviest of creams; pass the Bessemer Converter please, and watch out! "Birds Of Fire" wards off the little devils with some gentle gonging and then Cobham blasts off, launching the rhythm with an engineering precision that is never uninteresting. I could listen to the drum tracks to this LP alone a couple of times and not get bored. Goodman's building thematic riffs are as always the perfect wave for McLaughlin's double-barreled stun-gun guitar to surf on. Jan Hammer's gentle, trickling overture to "Miles Beyond" (Miles Davis' tune) belies the hard sound that soon takes over. Hammer and Goodman have a marvelous pizzicato duet, the latter picking his electric violin while Hammer expertly comps. McLaughlin's jolting, seemingly automatic guitar is fast and loud almost beyond belief. "Celestial Terrestial Commuters" (Sri Chinmoy lives in Queens, you see) begins with some other-worldly insectine Moogery from Hammer in front of one of the orchestra's ringing chime themes and features amazing guitar-violin dialogue. "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" consists of 20 seconds of pulsar language, leading into "Thousand Island Park," an acoustic number modeled after "A Lotus on Irish Streams," from The Inner Mounting Flame. McLaughlin's acoustic playing appeals on a more peaceful if less visceral level, his facility of technique being far more appreciable on the wooden instrument, "Hope" is a two-minute coda structured on an extended single phrase. Higher and Higher is the message. Side two is brought into focus with Cobham's nimble drum magic for the introduction to "One Word." To these ears it's the most dramatic percussion since Elvin Jones' beginning to Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," nine years ago. Bassist Rick Laird finally gets a chance to cook for more than a couple of bars, and then guitar, keyboard and violin swirl around each other in the clouds somewhere, trading gorgeous figures with ease and pleasure. The lugubrious, somewhat ominous theme of "Sanctuary" contrasts with "Open Country Joy," a beautiful vehicle for mellower passions for a few seconds, then exploding into more Mahavishnu fire music. So where do you turn when you've had your fill of ambi-sexual pop-tart rock, when the moaning L.A. pseudobumpkins get on your nerves, the soul sisters and brothers start to sound prepackaged and your brain is beaten by the latest attempt to set the pre-pubes on the rock & roll warpath? What's left that has any quality and still has the guts to rock on? Here it is.

STEPHEN DAVIS - Rolling Stone (RS 128)
 

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