thatwasthen

More Music From the Expanding Horizons Series by Nicky P

October 6, 2009

No, this isn’t a PBS special. Just some insane music I’m sure you’ve never heard!

I thought John McLaughlin was just that awesome virtuosic flamenco player from Friday Night in San Francisco (which is also very much worthy of a listen by the way…craziest acoustic playing of all time featuring Al Di Miola and Paco de Lucia as well), but I stand corrected.

I’d heard of the Mahavishnu Orchestra before but I was not prepared for its weirdness and oddly alluring, while simultaneously upsetting, music. I never really realized that progressive bands such as Dream Theater and even Rush have a lot to owe to these early (only slightly earlier in Rush’s case) progenitors.

Check it out for yourself, it’s a real trip.

Sections of note:

• Guitar solo starting at ~1:35, really gets cooking around 2:30
• Crazy fiddle solo at around 3:05
• Weird funky keyboard/bass breakdown at ~5:10
• Sonic the Hedgehog style synth solo at 7:15 (keep in mind this was new and awesome at the time…not at all cliche)
• Hilarious sitcom style introductions near 8:10
• Gnarly drum solo at 8:40…Billy Cobham is ridiculous

Posted by nicky on in Nicky P

Tagged with: , Expanding Horizons, Mahavishnu, Orchestra, progressive