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
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.