Visions of the Emerald Beyond - Mahavishnu Orchestra

Sep

22

Visions of the Emerald Beyond - Mahavishnu Orchestra

≡ Category: 1970s, Essential, Fusion, Reviews |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

JAZZBO NOTES ESSENTIAL RECORDING

Rating:

It’s fashionable to claim that the second lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, consisting of Jean-Luc Ponty (violin), Michael Walden (drums), Ralph Armstrong (bass), Gayle Moran (keyboards), is weaker than the first, which featured Jerry Goodman (violin), Billy Cobham (drums), Jan Hammer (keyboards), and Rick Laird (bass).

It can hardly be denied that Jan Hammer is the superior keyboard player, but after that you run into trouble. Michael Walden is a dynamite drummer, Jean-Luc Ponty is a terrific violinist, and Ralph Armstrong is actually a stronger bass player than Rick Laird. The featured soloists are McLaughlin and Ponty. Moran’s keyboards are used solely in the arrangements, and she acquits herself perfectly well in that capacity.

It’s true that the first incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra had an unholy power, and by the time they finished touring, they were an incredibly cohesive unit, but the critical dismissal of the second edition of Mahavishnu Orchestra is unfair, having more to do with musical fashion and the usual critics’ distrust of gradiose concerns than the band’s intrinsic worth.

For one thing, the music is quite different. The first band concentrated on power and band dynamics as much as it did on compositions. The recordings of the second edition are much more slanted towards John McLaughlin’s compositional interests, and feature an expanded instrumental pallette, including a small string section.

On Visions of the Emerald Beyond (issued on the Columbia label), the genres explored include opera, funk, string quartet, proto-heavy metal, fusion, and avant guarde classical. John McLaughlin’s Vision is grand and sweeping and feels of a piece, rather than a bunch of incompatible genres wired together by a dilletante.

For this listener, Visions of the Emerald Beyond is remarkably successful, evoking joy, peace, angst, awe, fury, and finally release. That music can do this is amazing. I took it for granted when I first heard this music when I was a teenager. Mind you, I loved it at the time, but it never occurred to me how extraordinary it was that music could trigger such vivid emotional states, which is surely what John McLaughlin was shooting for — cosmic awareness through music. I’m not sure he achieved it, but he managed the next best thing — the illusion of cosmic awareness.

In retrospect, Visions of the Emerald Beyond stands as possibly the most ambitious fusion recording of all time and one of the very best.