As jazz rock pioneer John McLaughlin neared his 70th birthday in 2012, he showed little sign of slowing down, artistically or otherwise. That year he told Prog about his latest album, Now Here This, looked back on some of his career highlights to date, and reflected on the nature of music and musicians.
“Am gannin doon the road to get mesel’ a paper!” laughs John McLaughlin. A rough-as-rivets Geordie accent isn’t quite what you expect to hear from this remarkable musician, whose work as a solo artist – and with the likes of Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, the genre-blurring Shakti, and, of course, the Mahavishnu Orchestra – have made him a legendary figure in the worlds of jazz and rock.
Although born in Yorkshire, after his parents split up his formative years were spent in the North East seaside town of Whitley Bay near Newcastle. It was here that he first picked up on the sing-song vagaries of the Geordie dialect, and more importantly, where he first picked up the guitar.
“I was 11 years old when it first arrived in my hands. I’d been playing piano for a few years prior to that. My mother was an amateur violinist who did nothing but encourage me to play music. She was a great woman. I fell in love with that guitar and took it to bed that night. It was just a cheap thing, but I was absolutely entranced by this instrument and I have been ever since. Without my mother’s support I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
He’s at his home in France, undertaking an intensive round of interviews supporting the release of a new album by the 4th Dimension Band, Now Here This. For a man now in his 70th year on the planet, he could be forgiven if he sounded a little jaded – yet his conversation is frequently peppered with laughter, and an infectious sense of wonder and boundless enthusiasm that would be more in keeping with a musician just starting out, rather than that of a player with countless albums to his name.
“If you trace my history through groups like One Truth Band and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, they’re kind of pivotal in my history, and the 4th Dimension Band is very much part of my continuing development as a player,” he says of his bandmates Gary Husband (keyboards and occasional drumming), Etienne M’Bappé (bass guitar) and Ranjit Barot (drums and Indian percussion). “This group gives me the possibility to grow, for want of another word. I can really grow with these people.”
Much like his work in other ensembles, a feature of the 4th Dimension Band is the way McLaughlin’s guitar bounces across the grooves and beats of the new album. It’s heady stuff at times, and clearly something he thrives on. “It’s like skimming stones, a wonderful feeling. There’s a turbulence, but there’s this marvellous golden connection between everything that just carries us along in waves. Of course, that’s wonderful for me as a player.
“I’ve been so lucky in my life to have played with so many of the greatest drummers: Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Cobham, Narada Michael Walden, Trilok Gurtu, Mark Mondesir, and of course in the band at the moment we have two drummers.”
If you’re a bit of a bugger in life then you’re going to be a bit of a bugger in music… I try to find the great players I can live with and laugh with
The album displays an unashamed virtuosity from each member; but as McLaughlin explains, the key to what makes for a successful group isn’t necessarily about how fast they can dash off a scale or a chorus. “If you’re a bit of a bugger in life then you’re going to be a bit of a bugger in music. There are some great musicians whom I admire, but with whom I have no real desire to play. You can’t be one way in life and another way in music. If you’re like that in life then you’re like that in music.
“So while it’s true you look for great players, you also look for somebody who’s on the same wavelength as you. This allows a kind of complicity to develop. I try to find the great players I can live with and laugh with.”
Being around great players is something he’s done right from the off. He spent years paying his dues in stints with Graham Bond, Alexis Korner, Georgie Fame and session work that took him into the light entertainment sphere populated by Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones and Cilla Black.
He was 27 when he recorded his first solo album Extrapolation in 1969 – a sparsely furnished but versatile album that showcased not only his fluidity, but his emerging abilities as a composer. By the time it was released he’d already swapped London for New York after receiving a call from Miles Davis’ drummer, Tony Williams, then in the throes of putting together his own band, Lifetime.
A month after completing Extrapolation, he found himself, alongside Williams, laying down tracks for Davis’ seminal work In A Silent Way. Part of the trumpeter’s mercurial genius was an antennae for truly talented musicians, and he immediately offered the guitarist a permanent job.
Shakti was very special because it was a real playing band. There’s no room for sitting back and coasting
Although he would play on groundbreaking albums such as Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson, McLaughlin knew he would have more freedom in Lifetime with Williams. If you want to know where jazz-rock begins, their 1969 double-album Emergency! is a good place to start. Completed by organist Larry Young, the trio unleashed an elemental storm that forced the brash dynamics of rock and the virtuosity of jazz together in ways that are still startling and daringly original.
Against the backdrop of Young’s ethereal organ and the constantly sizzling ride-cymbal of Williams, McLaughlin’s savage guitar runs gnawed and roared like a beast uncaged. Ceded within Emergency! and 1970’s Turn It Over were themes McLaughlin would revisit and refine in his next project, the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
If Lifetime had been a seismic explosion, The Mahavishnu Orchestra was a precision-guided missile. Powered by Billy Cobham’s high-octane drumming, McLaughlin was joined by Jan Hammer’s effusive keyboards and Jerry Goodman’s racing violin. Signed by CBS without the label having heard a note, the band not only wowed the critics but became a huge commercial success.
Given the complexity of their nuanced jazz-rock, how does he account for the way in which the record-buying public snapped up albums such as 1973’s Birds Of Fire, and – pausing briefly to change line-ups – 1975’s Visions Of The Emerald Beyond? “Maybe because we were the loudest, fastest band in the world? I don’t know!” laughs McLaughlin.
At a time when most guitar legends sported shaggy lion-like manes, his trademark white suit and short-back-and-sides haircut made him stand out. His sartorial choices reflected his very public spiritual quest and interest in Eastern philosophy and religion. “The Eastern influence started with me a long time before I left the UK. I stopped dropping acid around 1967, joined a meditation group and started doing yoga – and of course Indian music followed, because the philosophy and music are intertwined and inclusive.
“I saw the whole of the 60s: Coltrane, Miles, The Beatles, the psychedelic era and the social revolution. It was a phenomenal decade for me in the sense that a lot of dreams that came to fruition in the 70s were born in the 60s. The Mahavishnu Orchestra was just one of them – but Shakti was another.”
You can never get to the end. The whole point of music is to be who you are, and really that’s the whole point of life, isn’t it?
Although there’d always been an East-meets-West presence within his work, Shakti brought it to the fore in a thrilling and joyous fusion. McLaughlin abandoned the iconic double-necked guitar in favour of a distinctive acoustic setting, alongside virtuoso Indian musicians including tabla player Zakir Hussain and the violinist L Shankar. “Shakti was very special because it was a real playing band. There’s no room for sitting back and coasting – but who wants to coast when you’ve got players like Zakir and Shankar?
“I got a lot of flak from the record company, from my manager and my agent for forming Shakti, because I was giving up Mahavishnu Orchestra, you know, a very, very successful band. They said: ‘Whaddya mean, yer gonna sit on a carpet and play with these Indian guys? What’s that all about?’ But I wanted to do it, so I accepted the consequences and I lost a lot of sales. But as time goes by, Shakti is a group that people love all over the world. In the end, as long as we stay true to ourselves then we’re okay.”
Musicians and politics can be a fraught combination, but McLaughlin’s belief that music is a common currency and a positive force in the world is unshakable. The Wall Will Fall (recorded several years before the Berlin Wall was dismantled) and Blues For LW (composed when Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałesa was under arrest) illustrate his interest in humanitarian issues.
When the reformed Shakti attempted to play a concert in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the troubled West Bank region of the Middle East, it proved to be a controversial decision that took three years of complex negotiations before the concert finally happened in 2012. “I’ve been following the situation between Israel and Palestine for a long time, and of course there are some radicals and militants on both sides,” McLaughlin says. “We finally got through with an association in Ramallah who use music for traumatised children. It was a thrill to play for the most lovely people.”
When I go to a concert I want to be taken to the world where that musician lives; I want him or her to bring me into their world
He cites the conductor Daniel Barenboim and his celebrated West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – which unites Arab and Israeli musicians as a motivating force – in making the event happen. “I saw Daniel recently. He was playing a programme of Beethoven’s music. I saw him afterwards and thanked him for the inspiration to get to Palestine.”
Aside from plans to return to Ramallah with Shakti, McLaughlin has a constant stream of projects that he’s involved in, one of which includes reuniting with Carlos Santana for a series of concerts commemorating their epic 1973 collaboration, Love Devotion Surrender. Meanwhile he’s prepping for a world tour with the 4th Dimension Band, and has no inclination to slow down his ongoing musical and spiritual quest.
“You can never get to the end. The whole point of music is to be who you are, and really that’s the whole point of life, isn’t it? The spiritual search is wrapped up in one question: ‘Who am I?’ If you improvise, what are you going to say? The only thing a musician can talk about when he’s soloing is how he loves his instrument and the affection he has for the musicians around him. He can only tell the story of his life.
“When I go to a concert I want to be taken to the world where that musician lives; I want him or her to bring me into their world. They can only do it if the music is strong enough. Whatever it may be, whether it’s melancholy or joy or just laughter, then the door is opened.”
What’s been the greatest obstacle he’s encountered to entering that open door over the course of his career? He pauses a moment, then smiles. “My own ignorance, primarily. That’s been the great barrier.” His words are now punctuated by great gulps of laughter. “The minute we think we know something, then we’re even more stupid than we thought. It’s taken me 70 years to realise that I know almost nothing!”
