JOHN McLAUGHLIN & the 4TH DIMENSION
Country: Great Britain
John McLaughlin - guitar
Gary Husband - keyboards, drums
Etienne Mbapp? - bass
Ranjit Barot - drums
John McLaughlin is legendary British guitarist, who plays jazz fusion style, one of the most authoritative musicians of contemporaneity. The musician is well-known most of all as the participant of recording of symbolic albums of fusion genre by Miles Davis In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. As well as the leader of own projects: McLaughlin is the founder of one of the most bright representatives of jazz rock of the seventies – The Mahavishnu Orchestra group, the creator of acoustic project Shakti (pioneers of world music genre). The work of John McLaughlin as the member of acoustic trio together with the guitarists Paco de Lucia and Al di Meola received high estimations of musical critics.
His playing technique with acoustic and electric guitars in different genres (such as jazz, flamenco, Indian classical music, fusion and western classical music) exerted substantial impact on a great number of well-known guitarists. In 2003 John McLaughlin got 49th place in the list of Rolling Stone magazine «100 greatest guitarists of all times».
John McLaughlin was born in Yorkshire (England) in 1942, in his childhood for a short period learned playing piano, and then at the age of 11 years John McLaughlin began to master the guitar on his own. From his youth John McLaughlin was inspired by blues and swing performers, delta blues and flamenco, Django Reinhardt and later – John Coltrane with Miles Davis exerted influence on him.
In 1960 John McLaughlin moved to London, where he completely surrendered himself to the trend of British blues "revivers" (Jack Bruce, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton) and joined Blue Flames group. In the sixties John McLaughlin worked with Alexis Corner, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker and during six months played free jazz with G?nter Hampel.
In 1968 he recorded his first album Extrapolation and the next year left for United States, becoming the apprentice of Sri Chinmoy. This initiated afterwards creation of Mahavishnu Orchestra project, and in 1972 the album Love Devotion Surrender appeared, recorded together with another follower of Sri Chinmoy doctrine Carlos Santana.
In 1969 John McLaughlin arrived to New York for joint recording of Lifetime with Tony Williams and at the same time he appeared in two classical records of Miles Davis: In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. In 1971 John McLaughlin formed Mahavishnu Orchestra, a very bright group, which although sometimes plays in rock manner, but using sophisticated jazz improvisation. In 1973 after three symbolic albums (The Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire and Between Nothingness and Eternity) the group broke up (afterwards John McLaughlin made attempts to revive Mahavishnu Orchestra).
In 1975 John McLaughlin began acoustic project Shakti, oriented to Indian tradition: 13-strings guitar - John McLaughlin, tabla – Zakir Hussein and the violinist – Lakshminarayana Shankar. During three years of its existence the group exerted very powerful influence on world musical stage.
John McLaughlin in all his projects remains true musical innovator, his style is easily recognizable by characteristic explosive, incredibly quick, imperceptible guitar passages. During fruitfu career he was recorded as the leader in Marmalade, Dawns, Douglas International, Columbia, Warner Bros., Verve, Universal Records studios.
In 2007 John McLaughlin left Universal Records and joined small Internet-oriented label Abstract Logix, cooperating with independent collectives of such trends as jazz, progressive rock and world music. In the summer of the same year the guitarist began to perform with new jazz fusion quartet 4th Dimension (with this project the musician will perform in the festival Alfa Jazz Fest in Lviv). Since the summer of 2008 McLaughlin plays together with Chick Corea and other musicians as the member of the project «5 Peace Band».
