HEART OF THINGS
Royal Festival Hall, London 11.11.98
John McLaughlin - Guitar
Dennis Chambers - Drums
Otmaro Ruiz - Keyboards
Matthew Garrison - Bass Guitar
Victor Williams - Percussion
Gary Thomas - Saxes, Flute
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written by
Mark Anderson
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Fresh from recording their next
live album in Paris the previous two
nights, HoT took to the stage looking relaxed and in control. The
familiar sounds of 'Seven Sisters' wafted through the hall but John did
not look happy - his ear piece monitor was not functioning and although
the audience could clearly hear his guitar, he evidently could not.
With a deft pull on an imaginery chain he brought the band to a halt and
explained the technical difficulty. Upon getting the sound restored, and
with much hip swinging to each other ( a hip sort of swagger that was to
be repeated throughout the evening) they were off into the opening
number.
It was evident from the off that John was in full 'quote' mode. He is
well known for reworking old musical ideas (Seven Sisters intro is a
reworking of Trilogy pt 2 riff) and even uses Dance of Maya as a bridge
section into Ruiz first of many stunning contributions. During the
evening John's solos contained bits of 'Are you the One',
'Radioactivity', Monk's 'Epistrophy', 'Meeting of the Spirits', the
later with a nod to Mr DC who smiled in recognition.
The find of the evening was Otmaro Ruiz. His solo contribution on 'The
Divide' particularly was stunning and sounded more like John's guitar
solo style rather than a keyboard soloist. His duo and trading with John
on Mr DC raised the heat of the whole evening, particularly his attack
and staccato single note repetitions were marvellous and John was
evidently hugely entertained.
'Mr DC' followed with its tortuous unison theme which seemed to take
Matty Garrison by surprise. First run through was just keyboard and
bass, second time through John and Gary Thomas joined.
Although John introduced the sax player as a revolutionary on the sax, I
still cannot find satisfaction in his contribution; tuneless, often
middle ranged and meandering, he reminded me often of an earnest but
somewhat lacking member of the Ornette Coleman school, intent on not
playing anything remotely recognisable as a theme, tune, key (always
play out, man !!) and stares straight ahead into a future only he is
contemplating.
However his composition 'The Divide' provided one of the more muscular,
robust periods of the concert and gave us a rare McLaughlin solo moment,
with a rasping ring modulated sound that started to get edgy, albeit
composed almost entirely of musical quotes followed by a machine gun
salvo.
In the most part, John was content to inject little phrases here and
there against either written sections or complimentary to the soloist's
efforts. His main feature, a duo with Dennis a la Cobham/McLaughlin in
the old Mahavishnu days, was missing tonight along with Acid Jazz, the
composition vehicle which normally carried it. HoT have played largely
the same set since they began, but tonight the music was more intense,
the compositions more densely layered than the recorded and recent live
versions. Small additions here and there mean that most of the
compositions are 1/4 hour or longer.
John announced that, at the end of 'Fallen Angels' that this is what we
all are (ladies & Gentlemen) and the piece evokes a real sense of
compassion and melancholia. Victor Williams starts off the piece with a
percussion solo utilising reverbed congas. Hmmm, as a drummer I'm not
sure about a percussionist who wears gloves but then I'm also a bit of a
traditionalist. Following Trilok is a bit of a hard gig, and with DC on
drums one wonders what role other than 'colour' a percussionist can
bring to the band, but he performed his role admirably, even changing
places with DC at the end and catching John out when introducing them.
The inclusion of 'Mother Tongues' in the HoT set seems a natural choice.
The piece has graduated from the Trilok vehicle in the Trio through a
chance to weld three different solo-styles together in Free Spirits and
tonight reveals a great similarity in chord progression underpinning the
solos to that of the second part of 'Dreams & Sighs' from Electric
Dreams. The piece is adapted well to carry inventive solos from Ruiz
(again outstanding) and Garrison, who plays with great enthusiasm and
authority all evening.
The evening finishes somewhat pre-emptively with 'Tony' the sombre
dedication to the 'sadly missed' Mr Williams. Dennis again demonstrates
why 'he's the One' with a devastating solo, showing fantastic
syncopation with all limbs playing different tempi and timings at one
point, turning the snare stick round to vary attack and pitch then
exploding into double pedal, cymbal slashing frenzy and returning to the
Williams hallmark pressroll as it began.
In conclusion a very polished, musically dense performance, with all
participants seemingly effortless in the control and understanding of
the music, evidently sharing each others moments of originality
(Garrison falling to one knee during one of Ruiz's greater outbursts)
and creativity with great relish. Those in the audience who are not
life-long fans of the great man may well be easily bewildered by his
constant re-invention of himself that defies superficial continuity and
indeed many couples left throughout the concert (John: "Thanks for
coming" and "It gets better later"). I for one still miss the fuzz box
and the sheer 'take no prisoners' guitar of the Mahavishnu and OTB, but
in his 56th year, looking somewhat the worse for nearly forty years on
the road, John is playing his most musically challenging material yet.
As a 'senior' progenitor he now assumes the mantle of mentor to a new
generation of jazz musicians and like Miles did, often takes a
supporting role in this ensemble rather than torch bearer, often from
the side of the stage, but exerts sufficient and masterly influence on
the whole proceedings to still deserve the Leaders laurel.
Set List:-
Seven Sisters (McLaughlin) 16.06
Mr D.C. (McLaughlin) 15.46
Fallen Angels (McLaughlin) 13.57
Mother Tongues (McLaughlin) 15.22
The Divide (Gary Thomas) 18.27
Tony (McLaughlin) 12.07
Times approx.
Oneness
Marco