Category is: skull-crushing breakbeats. Enter the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose high-intensity fusion of psychedelia, prog and jazz took the rock world by storm with its explosive debut The Inner Mounting Flame in 1971, which according to critic Richard S. Ginell “may have been the cause of more blown-out home amplifiers than any other record this side of Deep Purple.”
Featuring an international lineup of virtuoso musicians (English guitarist John McLaughlin, Irish bassist Rick Laird, Panamanian-American drummer Billy Cobham, Czech-American keyboardist Jan Hammer and American violinist Jerry Goodman), the self-styled orchestra performed musical acrobatics whose listeners are still trying to catch their breath 50 years later.
Driven by the duel-necked frenzy of McLaughlin’s guitar and the double-kick onslaught of Cobham’s drums, The Inner Mounting Flame sounds like a hundred Jimi Hendrixes playing at once. Both musicians would appear on Miles Davis’ Get Up with It (1974), also on Columbia, and unleash another electrifying breakbeat on the side-two opener ‘Vital Transformation.’
The track opens with Cobham’s muscular break in 9/8 time, delivered with the kind of polyrhythmic attack liable to shatter skeletons. The rest of the band riff intricately over the top (and it is over the top), before a brief moment of calm crescendoes into McLaughlin’s searing solo. You can hear Cobham’s pioneering use of the China cymbal, which he rides as though it’s pissed him off.
We here at Jazz Impressions have had the pleasure of seeing the powerhouse drummer live a couple of times, and even in his 70s Cobham appears as unbreakable as his drum kit.
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Someone gave me a copy of this when I was about 19 and that was about 30 odd years ago. Although it has somewhat enriched my life I often wondered what my life might have been like if I had remained listening to merely popular music.. Because I found some of the most overwhelmingly intense and amazing Artists like Allan Holdsworth and sought out the more fusion based progressive rock nuggets like Caravan however I would say YIN by the 11th House with Larry Coryell is the American equivalent of Vital Transformation by the Mahavishnu Orchestra…. Anyway that’s enough for my 1st tweet. Take care and stay safe x Feckpyg x