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For whom does the guitar play tonight?! What can be done, especially, with a simple acoustic guitar? What else can be invented in 2006 with a guitar, after Henry Kaiser, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Khan, Scott Henderson, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Hendrix, Scofield, Wes, Pat1 (Martino) and Pat2 (Metheny) etcetera? To find out and to reveal the absolute greatness of a musician like Mc Laughlin, to fall to your knees with open mouths in incredulous adoration and musical abstraction in your listening place, to bring smiles of grateful nostalgia to the older DeBaserioti, to go "forward" on the six strings, to make a nice "reality check" as a cold shower to the ego of all electric shredders or those who thought they had discovered new horizons "today", you must buy this 1969 album: an unmatched gem.
A unique and absolute oblique colored orchid in the black night (see cover!) of the specifically guitar jazz garden of the last 50 years; a place generally quite numerically sparse of breathtaking and innovative "seicordarum" musical cuts, compared to the large masses of pianist or saxophonist cousins. It must be said that here the cast is of absolute respect and not at all secondary when compared to the leader to whom the work is credited. We are talking about an album of just over 40 minutes, which will fly by like drinking a lemon Minute Maid at midday on August 15th: John Surman, one of the major protagonists of the British and international jazz scene always, Tony Oxley, precise, discreet, and brilliant drummer; so much so that when Bill Evans came on tour in Europe alone and was given the continental rhythm section including Tony, the latter was immediately asked to become a permanent part of the Bill Evans trio (no thanks, Bill: I am "flattered" but I want to stay at home, in England) and a less-known Brian Odges to most but solid, inventive, and well-realized bassist, as absolutely necessary for the bass in the economy of a group without piano, covering a central and highly critical role.
Right from the start, Brian introduces the first of the nine tracks, while John "strums" crooked and empty chords, like nobody else at that time. (TECHNICAL NOTE: the use of acoustic guitar involves a very different approach compared to electric, since the acoustic has more harmonic content but less sustain, thus to fill one tends to play more chords and fewer single notes, which sound weaker). The Mc Laughlin of this album is radically different from what we will find later in the Mahavisnu Orchestra, with his handcrafted Rex Bogue guitars inlaid with mother-of-pearl! Ah, treacherous nostalgia! Anyway, to continue for the first track, a unison entry of Surman and the guitar, seemingly drunk and ramshackle but instead central and compelling; sobbing and tortured yet hypnotic and catalytic both in the accompaniment and in the asymmetric and strategic absences (pauses).
Humble writer, do not joke too much on the subject please: those who loved this album at the time already feel in their hearts that this debut is the big bang, the absolute and enormous prequel of everything John Mc Laughlin later managed to construct as a fine craftsman of notes: as leader, with various Shakti, Shankar, Santana; with Larry Coryell (buy "Spaces": it's an order!), with Jonas Hellborg, Trilok Gurtu (even for these last experiences he will use acoustic guitars, maybe more refined and better amplified) or as a pivot and unique crucible, catalyst and singer often alternative to Miles' trumpet in "In A Silent Way", "Jack Johnson", "Big Fun"; special and brilliant collaborator, so much so as to deserve the title of a track in "Bitches Brew" ("John Mc Laughlin", obviously!); so trusted as to take the responsibility of having to create on the spot, due to a momentary creative KO of the leader, destroyed by the recent news of Duke's death, the repetitive, slim, and piercing theme of the track "He Loved Him Madly" in "Get up with it". Not that Miles credited him, as to royalties: in the credits the piece was composed by Davis, as usual! (For the record: Mc Laughlin is not even mentioned in the album as a performer! Instead, Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas appear!).
Back to the music: this album "marches" compactly like a locomotive and is indeed a concept album; the tracks are played without interruption: with some slightly mingusian and valid ideas. We can say that this album stands to a normal jazz title of the time as "The Lamb Lies Down" or "Close To The Edge"... stand to a Neil Young or James Taylor record. Innovative, disruptive, and amazing. Performed with deep sounds although only with simple acoustic instruments. Surman deserves a monument if only for this album. Still speaking of instruments, the guitar here is not even a beautiful jazz arch-top, that is, an expensive and refined guitar suitable for the purpose, or an expensive solid body full of gadgets, but a simple "flat top" with a microphone in the sound hole; which for those who do not play the guitar would be somewhat of that box hanging on the wall of all those who start playing two chords by ear! The result, unique, transcends anything you have heard recently: there are no other works like this. The soundscapes change continuously: from fragmented and pulsating swing to slower and bluesy atmospheres, to take off in a skewed but swift manner towards ECM ante-litteram sounds. Here it’s evident that Europe is lending an ear towards America and the new, out-of-standard rhythms, while at the same time American jazz is trying to give itself a patina of neoclassical dignity, seeking the famous third stream or at any rate with more complex orchestrations. No breakdown of the tracks one by one: it all feels like a single varied, long, and very short song or suite; played with feeling and total participation.
Excuse the evident emotion, but after over thirty years I finally bought it on CD and listened to it repeatedly: although I frankly don't remember what I ate last night, I already feel in advance all the notes and changes of this music; by heart. For the record, I bought it online on Fandango: another good Italian site where you can buy music at a decent price, with low shipping costs. Now, I certainly can't know for whom the guitar plays, tonight; however, this album, just in case, buy it quickly: the old Gibson flat-top of this monolith of European jazz will keep playing until your player betrays you! Modern players!!!
J V.
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