Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The Origin of the Face Melter Part 1: The Mahavishnu Orchestra.



Syracuse, NY. 1972.

John Mclaughlin - Guitar
Billy Cobham - Drums
Jan Hammer - Keys
Jerry Goodman - Violin
Rick Laird - Bass

I give you, The Mahavishnu Orchestra.

As soon as you're finished wiping the drool off your chin and the fractals out of your peripheral vision, take a moment and pay homage to one of the originators of the face-melting, mind blistering jam.

Every so often a musician and or band comes along that completely changes the face of music. Every once in a while a troubadour decides that doors need to be drop kicked, and souls need to be crushed under the forces of pure and unadulterated genius. Like his mentor Miles Davis did a few years prior, John Mclaughlin decided to stomp a mudhole in the collective gut of jazz and rock music. With a deadly line up that included my favorite drummer of all-time, Billy Cobham, and Jan Hammer on keys. These guys were for real.

My Dad once saw these guys bend minds and bone ear holes at the Guthrie Theater on March 13th, 1973. He told me their set was approximately 5 hours long. Damn.

2 comments:

MayorMike said...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-090505-face-transplant-us-pg,0,1128131.photogallery

Anonymous said...

I was there too but I didn't recognize your dad. To this day I still think of it as the absolute best concert I ever went to.