JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING
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Paradoxically incredibly influential and impossible to successfully imitate, The Inner Mounting Flame perfectly encapsulated the prevailing trend in jazz in the early 70s, the complete atomization of the existing jazz genres into a thousand glittering shards.
The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s music contained, along with heaping doses of rock, elements of jazz, European classical music, Indian classical music (mostly in the complex rhythms and modal harmonies), Celtic folk, and even American country. There has been nothing like it before or since.
The foundation of The Mahavishnu’s Orchestra’s sound has to be drummer Billy Cobham. With the band’s emphasis on complex rhythms and pounding rock, only a drummer with the speed, power and dexterity of Cobham could pull off tunes like the blistering Noonward Race. At the same time, he brings an R&B sensibility to the proceedings, so even though many of the tracks are in odd time signatures like 9/8 or 10/8, Cobham manages to make them groove like a bastard.
On the front line, the combination of John McLaughlin on guitar and Jerry Goodman on violin was quite innovative at the time, and hasn’t really been used much since outside of McLaughlin’s bands. While McLaughlin’s prowess on guitar is rightly legendary, Goodman keeps up with him and adds a lyrical bent which greatly enriches the sound of the group, especially on the Celtic influenced A Lotus on Irish Streams.
Keyboardist Jan Hammer’s taste and touch on that number are fantastic, spinning out melodies and counter melodies that feel newly minted, as unique to him as a fingerprint. Aside from his dazzling playing on the album, Hammer was experimenting with keyboard sounds too, like the overtones on the solo that closes Vital Transformation.
Probably the most famous tune on The Inner Mounting Flame is Dance of Maya, a stately theme in 10/8 built on a series of slowly played 3 and 2 note arpeggios, leading to a descending cadence of diminished and augmented chords. Halfway through the piece, a blues shuffle kicks in, still maintaining the odd meter. Dance of Maya climaxes with the mindboggling superimposition of the theme on top of the blues shuffle.
As hard as it is to summarize the accomplishment of The Inner Mounting Flame given all it’s stylistic innovations, I’ll stick out my neck and say that it’s the emphasis the music places on rhythm and melodic invention, based not on traditional jazz harmony, but rather on modes like Phrygian and Locrian, all played with the energy and intensity of rock.
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