Label:
Columbia – KC 32034
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold / Country: US / Released:
Jul 1973
Style:
Jazz-Rock, Fusion, Free Improvisation
Recorded at
Columbia Records CBS Inc., New York in October 1972 / March 1973.
Design
[Album], Photography By [Cover] – Ashok
Photography
By [Other Photographs] – Pranavananda
Liner
Notes – Sri Chinmoy
Engineer
– Glen Kolotkin
Pressed
By – Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Santa Maria
Matrix
/ Runout (Side A Label): AL 32034
Matrix
/ Runout (Side B Label): BL 32034
A1
- A Love Supreme (John Coltrane)
........................................................ 7:48
A2
- Naima (Coltrane) .................................................................................
3:09
A3
- The Life Divine (John McLaughlin)
...................................................... 9:30
B1
- Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord (Traditional) ............................
15:45
B2
- Meditation (McLaughlin) ......................................................................
2:45
Mahavishnu
John McLaughlin – guitar, piano
Carlos
Santana – guitar
Doug
Rauch – bass guitar
Larry
Young – organ
Jan
Hammer – drums, percussion
Billy
Cobham – drums, percussion
Don
Alias – drums, percussion
Mike
Shrieve – drums, percussion
James
Mingo Lewis – percussion
Armando
Peraza – congas, percussion, vocals
A hopelessly misunderstood record in its time by Santana fans -- they were still reeling from the radical direction shift toward jazz on Caravanserai and praying it was an aberration -- it was greeted by Santana devotees with hostility, contrasted with kindness from major-league critics like Robert Palmer. To hear this recording in the context of not only Carlos Santana's development as a guitarist, but as the logical extension of the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis influencing rock musicians -- McLaughlin, of course, was a former Davis sideman -- this extension makes perfect sense in the post-Sonic Youth, post-rock era. With the exception of Coltrane's "Naima" and McLaughlin's "Meditation," this album consists of merely three extended guitar jams played on the spiritual ecstasy tip -- both men were devotees of guru Shri Chinmoy at the time. The assembled band included members of Santana's band and the Mahavishnu Orchestra in Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham, Doug Rauch, Armando Peraza, Jan Hammer (playing drums!), and Don Alias. But it is the presence of the revolutionary jazz organist Larry Young -- a colleague of McLaughlin's in Tony Williams' Lifetime band -- that makes the entire project gel. He stands as the great communicator harmonically between the two very different guitarists whose ideas contrasted enough to complement one another in the context of Young's aggressive approach to keep the entire proceeding in the air.
In
the acknowledgement section of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," which
opens the album, Young creates a channel between Santana's riotous,
transcendent, melodic runs and McLaughlin's rapid-fire machine-gun riffing.
Young' double-handed striated chord voicings offered enough for both men to
chew on, leaving free-ranging territory for percussive effects to drive the
tracks from underneath. Check "Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord,"
which was musically inspired by Bobby Womack's "Breezing" and
dynamically foreshadowed by Pharoah Sanders' read of it, or the insanely knotty
yet intervallically transcendent "The Life Divine," for the manner in
which Young's organ actually speaks both languages simultaneously. Young is the
person who makes the room for the deep spirituality inherent in these sessions
to be grasped for what it is: the interplay of two men who were not merely
paying tribute to Coltrane, but trying to take his ideas about going beyond the
realm of Western music to communicate with the language of the heart as it
united with the cosmos. After four decades, Love Devotion Surrender still
sounds completely radical and stunningly, movingly beautiful.
(Review
by Thom Jurek)
If
you find it, buy this album!
