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Frankfurt Music Prize winner 2012 John McLaughlin

John Bouchet — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:21:00 +0000

The Frankfurt Music Prize was founded in 1980 and has been awarded annually by the Frankfurt Music Prize Foundation on the occasion of the international Musikmesse in Frankfurt since 1982.

It is awarded to musicians, composers, teachers and personalities from the world of music for special achievements in the fields of interpretation, composition, musicology or teaching.

happy birthday to John

John Bouchet — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:40:24 +0000

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Palestine the 14 Feb 2012

John Bouchet — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:10:02 +0000

Dear Friends,

I’d like to inform you that after several years of pursuing the opportunity of playing in Palestine, we finally have arrived at a real possibility of achieving this dream in February next year. There is a very important association in Palestine called Al Mada. Their work is healing traumatized kids and people using several means, but primarily art and music. Thanks to the determination of the great people in Ramallah, and with the help of UNRWA the group Shakti will play a free concert of ‘solidarity’ for the wonderful work they are doing in helping victims of conflict.

Have a wonderful holiday season

John

Press Release >

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Mahavishnu Orchestra – The Complete Columbia Albums Collection

John Bouchet — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:58:11 +0000

The most complete package to date of Mahavishnu Orchestraís Columbia albums.
For the first time the complete recordings of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra all in one package!
Each individual album is packaged in a replica mini-LP sleeve reproducing that albumís original cover art.

Includes a bonus disc with 65 minutes of previously unreleased music from the Between Nothingness And Eternity 1973 live shows in New Yorkís Central Park. Staggering extended versions of ìThe Dance Of Mayaî, ìAwakeningî, and ìOne Wordî, plus ìHopeî, ìYou Know, You Knowî, ìStepping Tonesî and ìVital Transformationî.

Original Price: $59.98 USD

The Mahavishnu Orchestra, in its original incarnation, lasted just four years, but in that brief time, the pioneering quintet set both the template and the high-water mark for fusion music. No band ever rocked as hard in a jazzy place as guitarist John McLaughlinís charging ensemble.

McLaughlin had already built a firm reputation in his native England as a keen improviser with blues and rock leanings when he was invited by drummer Tony Williams in early 1969 to join him in New York. Almost immediately, McLaughlin was swept up into the very epicenter of the burgeoning fusion movement, appearing on ñ in 1969 alone ñ three of the genreís most significant recordings: Emergency! (by the newly-formed Tony Williams Lifetime) and In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, the epochal Miles Davis albums that kick started fusion.

When it was time for McLaughlin — who, in his initial New York stay, had quickly developed from a gifted player to a brilliant one — to form his own band, he brought together musicians who could apply full-force rock energy to improvisatory jazz skill. Keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jerry Goodman, and drummer Billy Cobham were each extravagant virtuosos eager to match McLaughlin at his own game; bassist Rick Laird contained the passion with his steady bass lines. Dubbed the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the new band released its debut recording, The Inner Mounting Flame in August of 1971: fusion as we know it was now fully born.

Younger listeners raised on rock responded to the band’s vitality and extraordinary musicianship; before long The Mahavishnu Orchestra was appearing with the likes of The Byrds and Aerosmith. Subsequent hit albums built on The Inner Mounting Flameís innovations; Hammer added synthesizers to his arsenal, developing a keyboard style nearly as influential as that of McLaughlinís frenetic guitar work and Cobhamís rumbling percussive attack. But it was nearly inevitable that the life span of such a dynamic ensemble would be brief. The Mahavishnu Orchestra threw down the gauntlet; fusioneers who followed have been trying to catch up ever since.

2011 marks the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the band and its signing to Columbia Records.
Features the original classic line-up of the band led by John McLaughlin — and including Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman and Rick Laird.
Smash hit albums The Inner Mounting Flame and Birds Of Fire are here, along with the bandís only live album Between Nothingness And Eternity, plus the rare The Lost Trident Sessions.
Also contains the very rare bonus track, a 15 minute live version of ìNoonward Raceî from the Mar Y Sol Festival in 1972 in Puerto Rico.

Albums included:

The Inner Mounting Flame (1971)
Birds Of Fire (1973)
The Lost Trident Sessions (1973)
Between Nothingness and Eternity (1974)
Bonus Disc: Between Nothingness And Eternity [Disc 2] All tracks previously unreleased

Link : complete.popmarket.com

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Corea & McLaughlin: Five Peace Band at the Blue Note

John Bouchet — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:01:55 +0000

Jazz star power at club level: Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Kenny Garrett, John Patitucci and Brian Blade

By Bill Milkowski

It’s always instructive to attend opening and closing nights of an extended engagement. Often, a given band will hit its stride on the bandstand over the course of the week and be flying by the final night. Sometimes the opposite happens. The excitement of opening night and thrill of the first-time hit can result in sheer sparks on the bandstand that only become more muted and predictable with repetition.

John McLaughlin and Chick Corea

Then again, there are bands that don’t hold to a prescribed set list, where each night is entirely its own unique entity. These bands not only don’t play the same thing twice, they don’t even play the same thing once. Such was the case with the Five Peace Band, which occupied the stage for the first weekend of Chick Corea’s month-long 70th birthday celebration at the Blue Note. In its initial phase, this fusion supergroup composed of Corea on keyboards, John McLaughlin on guitar, Kenny Garrett on alto sax, Christian McBride on bass and either Vinnie Colaiuta or Brian Blade on drums played large concert halls on tour in 2008 and 2009. To fit these cavernous venues and play to the back row, they necessarily affected a rock-band aesthetic. This scenario invariably led to the kind of bombastic chops-grandstanding that defeats nuanced interplay. But on Nov. 4, the opening night of their three-night engagement in the intimate Greenwich Village nightclub, these seasoned virtuosos were cooking on a low flame and conversing in subtle ways that would never read in the big concert halls.

> read more

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Article from Walter Kolosky in Guitar-Channel

John Bouchet — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:11:59 +0000

November of 2011 marks the 40^th anniversary of the start of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra’s phenomenal ascent to become the most heralded of all jazz-rock bands. It was in that month of 1971 that the band released its debut album, The Inner Mounting Flame, and began a relentless touring schedule. The first incarnation of the group lasted only thirty months, but four decades later you can’t turn around without bumping into a new Mahavishnu Orchestra tribute band, tribute album or yet another cover interpretation of the group’s trailblazing music.

interview with the huffington post

John Bouchet — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:37:34 +0000

Chats With George Benson, John McLaughlin, Fred Schneider of The B-52′s, and L.A. Guns’ Tracii Guns, Plus Lisa Hannigan’s New Video

Link >

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Monte Carlo Jazz Festival

John Bouchet — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:42:23 +0000

john will take part in the ‘guitar summit’ in monaco on the 24th of november 2011.

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Pirates v2

John Bouchet — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:32:21 +0000

Thanks for the unexpected response to my words. I knew that it would provoke both positive and negative reactions. I’m happy to have both. We all know piracy is here to stay since nothing is all bad, even piracy. I’m aware that through pirates’ operations, people in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other countries have the opportunity to download music they would otherwise never have access to, and this is necessarily good.
My comments are not even about my own situation any more. Musicians of my generation have been ‘suffering’ since the invention of the audio cassette! We’ve been living with it for decades. In addition, I’m very fortunate to have played with the greatest from East and West, and have an audience who support my work.
What really upsets me is the situation for the younger musicians. It really is rough out there, as most young players will agree. My commentary is about the perception of Internet theft. Whatever anyone may say, stealing IS stealing. What is clear, is that the ‘old days’ are gone forever. We are in a period of transition which always incurs a certain chaos. We need to find a system that will give the opportunity to musicians who want to give their music freely, the possibility. However, the system must include a way that enables musicians who live from their work, to be paid for their work.
Thanks for reading!

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Pirates

John Bouchet — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:50:01 +0000

Dear friends, it has been quite some time since my last words in print, but I feel the need to write just a few words about the musical world in its business sense, and the havoc created by those well meaning people known as internet ‘pirates’, that is the people who in their uncontrollable desire to make music in general, and CD’s in particular, available free to the global public. When asked about their activities, they frequently speak about their ‘noble’ aims to make music accessible to all and sundry, for free naturally, although not all of them are ‘noble’: to the contrary, they charge people and of course, never pay the artist or the intellectual royalties which are due to the song writers.
When we speak about the act of theft, which is what in reality it is, this no longer seems to bother anyone who is not affected economically by the actions of these people. The questions of ethics and the morality of theft, have lost their fundamental meaning to many people when it comes to ‘finding stuff on the internet’.
I however, would like to put this new view of values in the context of killing and murder.
Naturally enough, people who kill other people are still considered a menace to society, and either they will be imprisoned or executed depending on which country or which state in which country you live in.
But what about the killing of an industry? The record store is dead. Effectively dead from the deadly actions of the pirates. I grew up in record stores, they were one of the joys of my early life. What about the murder of the music industry? It’s clear to me that if the ‘pirates’ know about their fatal blows they have given to the music industry, they couldn’t care less. Do they realize the havoc and damage they have wreaked upon musicians, their lives and families, and the industry? Do they care? I think not.
Having spent the greater part of my life working with record companies, I am fully aware of their innate arrogance, and above all, their insatiable greed. Since the vinyl LP, they have systematically overcharged everyone for recordings. In a certain sense, they share the responsibility in the sorry state of affairs that the music industry now finds itself in. Even though technology has made home recording a reality, and has played a role in the demise of the recording studio, the knock-on effect of pitiful amounts of record sales can be traced directly to the continuing downloading, mainly free, of CD’s. How many recording studios have closed their doors forever? World-wide the number is spectacular.
What to do? What I fail to understand is the attitude of the respective governments of the ‘west’. Do these governments realize how much tax revenues they have lost, and lose daily from the actions of these ‘people’? We know that there are ‘pirates’ operating out of quite a few eastern bloc countries, Romania, Bulgaria, the Russian Federation to name just a few, where control from our point of view is out of the question. There are unfortunately, ‘pirates’ operating in many countries in Europe and the USA. What could be done here in the ‘civilized’ west, is that the governments take on the telecom companies. If they are found to be hosting ‘pirates’, they need to be sanctioned. The telecom companies know all too well who is doing what, and if they find themselves hit with large fines, for example, they will terminate the ‘pirates’ very quickly.
Perhaps I’m just naive, but having suffered for many years at the hands of ‘pirates’ who act with impunity, and I’ve seen the damage they have brought upon many people, not just musicians. I speak with authority. To be followed…

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