Another entry in the perpetually listening to every record in my collection alphabetically and blogging unscholarly thoughts project. This installment stars Makanda Ken McIntyre, John McLaughlin, Jackie McLean.
I only met Makanda Ken McIntyre one time. I discovered his playing on a great record by Honi Gordin, Honi Gordon Sings, and then on gigs around Boston, found out that he was from here. When you head down that path, you find lots of people who knew him, played with him, and every single person said the same thing to me: he was intense…brilliant, and intense. [N.B., Honi Gordon Sings also has Jaki Byard on it. Jaki spent a lot of time in Boston, teaching at New England Conservatory, playing as a band leader and playing with Herb Pomeroy.]
A local pianist hired me to play in her band, and that was already sort of amazing for me because – this is just a few years after I got to Boston – I found myself hanging out with Skip Hadden as a result. Skip is a Berklee teaching icon, and played with Weather Report back in the day. That pianist and I did a lot of work together, and in 1999 she asked me to go to NYC to play at a club/bookstore way down in Alphabet City. She had studied with McIntyre at some point, and in the middle of our first set, all of a sudden it felt like all of the atoms making up the world around us changed. I looked up at the door, and a man with maybe the most powerful presence I had ever witnessed walked in. That’s about all I have. I was too young and impressionable to be able to deal with much conversation beyond “hello” and “nice to meet you”. Since then, I have met a few other people with that kind of presence: Mahmoud Ahmed has that when he walks out on stage; Gunther Schuller seemed to have that wherever I saw him. It’s a rare and fascinating energy.
Hindsight is the only McIntyre record I have. That’s pretty sad. I have to change that. This record is with a European band, recorded in Copenhagen in 1974. Kenny Drew (ex-NYC), Bo Stief and Alex Riel sound great on this record. I like the multi-generational, cross-cultural nature of their playing together. You hear different approaches to swing, phrasing, and improvisational language all at once on this record. Plus, and I can’t believe I’m saying this because I can’t believe I heard it and I still don’t trust that it’s right, Bo Stief plays with a Wah Wah pedal on one track.
As for John McLaughlin, well here’s a guy with a cool name. Growing up in Iowa, I yearned for any sign that I could do it. You know, I could find myself playing with the heaviest cats around. There are lists of silly signs that I found in the universe pointing me towards this path, and one of them is that John – the English, amazing guitar player with a new name given to him by his Guru – and I have the same last name. Everything about this seemed to point me in the direction of the path towards playing with the heavies. Our last name, the importance of meditation and a deep connection to – what I could only think of at the time as – Eastern Philosophy. He played with Miles, and I loved Miles. His 70s records were on fire, one more burning than the next. His 80s records were beautiful, and with bassists like Kai Eckhardt and Dominique Di Piazza, I heard a connection to Jaco’s playing that, at the time, proved to me that I was on the right path. Bottom line: John McLaughlin’s influence was a big one.
Mahavishnu Orchestra – Inner Mounting Flame – This is, by far, my favorite Mahavishnu record. I’m sure I annoyed my suburban white middle class “Iowa nice” neighbors by blasting this record loudly enough that I could hear it out of my bedroom window into the farthest part of the back yard while I tried to meditate my way into a new consciousness, one that would – I hoped – would save me from a life of being just another schmuck working a dead end job with no future, and least of all, any positive direction towards music making on the level I was hearing. Sorry neighbors. I never quite made it to that level of consciousness, but I did eventually get up enough nerve to leave town. “Meeting of the Spirits” and “The Dance of the Maya” blow my mind, every time, even now.
Apocalypse – Given how much I loved Inner Mounting Flame and the trio records he released in the late 80s, and a few other great things, you would think that I would have rushed out and bought all of his Mahavishnu records. And, given the fact that this was produced by George Martin and the orchestrations were by Michael Gibbs, you would think that I would have grabbed this years ago. But I just didn’t. What a cool record, I think. Beautiful, inspired, fiery, luscious…just a fantastic album through and through. Again, I think so.
Visions of the Emerald Beyond – This is the second generation of Mahavishnu. I suppose that I should find out the backstory on the bands implosion, but in way, whatever problems were happening in the band seemed to make their way into the intensity of the music. Obviously, the first edition had the larger issues, but this band plays with a similar intensity. I have always wondered about Gayle Moran’s career, and hearing her on this record has kept me wondering. I like how different her voice is from virtually everyone else’s working at the time. She sounds great on this record, but my favorite recording of her is on Chick Corea’s My Spanish Heart. Anyway, this is a great record, but I still love Inner Mounting Flame the most.
As for Jackie McLean, he lived more in the category of untouchable legend than anyplace else in my brain. Reading about him in various jazz history books put him squarely that that spot, never to be changed. What I mean by that is this: in Boston since 1992, you run into legends and they become human, or sometimes you run into/study with someone who played with the legends (and is probably a legend him/herself), and they all turn into people. For some reason, even though McLean was just down the street (route 95) at Hartt, and even though I am sure that I have known people who studied with him and probably played with him, somehow, I was never lucky enough to know him closely enough for him to become a person. Instead, just a legend.
I don’t love everything I have that McLean is on, but his lyricism and the cleanliness of his bop lines are both fantastic sources of inspiration. His choice to play sharp all/most of the time, sometimes uncomfortably so, is even a positive thing as far as I’m concerned. But these records, though they are great, aren’t exactly my “go to” McLean records. Check out how freaked out I was about The Source by Dexter Gordon and Jackie McLean. Now, that’s a record! These – Contour, which re-releases Lights Out and 4, 5, and 6 – are all super straight ahead. Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Mal Waldron, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor are as great as you’d expect, but it all sort of sits in that space everything being right and good but not jaw dropping…except for “Sentimental Journey”, which is amazing. Anything with Elmo Hope changes that a bit, and so his sides are the stand outs, as far as I’m concerned.