Issue #1
The Only Internet Magazine Dedicated Solely to Fusion and World Music.
Issue #1 |
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The Only Internet Magazine Dedicated Solely to Fusion and World Music. |
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Copyright 2008 Xpanse Publishing, LLC. |
It must be very difficult for younger fusion fans to even fathom that once upon a time a band that played overpowering jazz-rock like the Mahavishnu Orchestra could place an album at #15 in the Pop Billboard sales charts! But that did happen with Birds of Fire! From the Billy Cobham gong strikes on the title cut to the last fading strains of “Resolution,” the genre’s first super group introduced the template for jazz-rock virtuosity and commercial success. The band’s first album The Inner Mounting Flame shocked and scared people. But BOF was an affirmation that the sometimes assaulting music heard on IMF could be built upon and refined. Jazz-rock had a future. Tunes like “Celestial Terrestrial Commuters” caught listeners up in a vortex of riffs played at super-sonic speeds and at volumes far in excess of safety. “One Word,” perhaps the greatest of all Mahavishnu tunes, was almost ten minutes long. Its dark and heavy introduction, lengthy drum solo and thrilling coda full of fiery calls and responses not only managed to hold the attention of many rock and jazz fans – but it virtually imprisoned them. Instruments in the hands of guitarist John McLaughlin, drummer Billy Cobham, violinist Jerry Goodman, keyboardist Jan Hammer and bassist Rick Laird became the tools that assured that incarceration. Birds of Fire is the greatest jazz-rock album ever recorded.
