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Jimmy Page and John Mclaughlin


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I've read several years ago Jimmy Page acknowledging he had lessons from John Mclaughlin. Anyone has any sources from either man about this significant tidbit of guitar history?

I'd like to hear John Mclaughlin talk about Jimmy Page. I think that would be an incredible story to cover.

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I've read several years ago Jimmy Page acknowledging he had lessons from John Mclaughlin. Anyone has any sources from either man about this significant tidbit of guitar history?

I'd like to hear John Mclaughlin talk about Jimmy Page. I think that would be an incredible story to cover.

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Its something I've always noticed...

They both have a similar sounding 'shred messily, then hit slower awesome notes at the end' type style when they were solo jamming. That comes off sounding like plenty of the 70's guitarist gameplans, but I've always made note of that particular similarity between them.

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Well the first song on Jugular , 1984ish sounds very very similar (guitar work does), but less technical than original ( page plays on that song) to a Mclaughlin song which names escapes me now !! it was on an album called passion grace and fire !!!

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That'll be 'Devadip'Carlos Santana and 'Whatever name he used at the time' John McLaughlin,then.

Love, Devotion, surrender may be the title of the fine record with him and devadip in their modest, spiritually-evolved white suits on the front. 'Birds of fire' is a good'un too. 1000 island park,or something similar,is a tune I recall as being very pleasing. Suddenly,a thought..it's ....Mahavishnu? John mc L's name. The band are the Mahavishnu Orchestra! Of course! Losing the self and the ego in the oneness etc.What better way to name a band? Billy Cobham,Rick Laird and maybe Jan Hammer.Or maybe not, because he did the Miami Vice theme, didn't he? Not deconstructing...just reporting.

Oh, and no-one mentioned Sri Chinmoy. Until now. But this doesn't count because it's not "art deconstruction"

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I saw John Mclaughlin play, I think, at the Blue Note in NYC during the early 90s. A friend and I got a table within 5 or 6 feet of him, it was great. I don't know his music very well though I always enjoyed it. The Mahavishnu Orchestra is a little too abstract for me; a perfect melding of jazz and rock.

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I saw John Mclaughlin play, I think, at the Blue Note in NYC during the early 90s. A friend and I got a table within 5 or 6 feet of him, it was great. I don't know his music very well though I always enjoyed it. The Mahavishnu Orchestra is a little too abstract for me; a perfect melding of jazz and rock.

Love Mahavishnu. Their live album 'in between nothingness and eternity' is fab!

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It's also funny that Jimmy Page is synonymous with the doubleneck when Mclaughlin played one far more than Jimmy ever did.

That's because most people not in music circles (and some in music circles-unfortunately) don't know who Mclaughlin is.

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Yeah me too.

Apart from the shocking record quality (which some say adds to the ambiance), I love this too:

2405.jpg

Now we're talking, SamG! I got to see Lifetime back in 1970 (Jack Bruce on bass). Amazing sound. Years ahead of their time.

RB

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Love Mahavishnu. Their live album 'in between nothingness and eternity' is fab!

Yes it is and so is "Visions From the Emerald Beyond." I saw McLaughlin with his group Shakti a few years back. Quite different from the fusion sounds but I liked it a lot. Another amazing group is Friday Night Live In San Francisco with him, Paco De Lucia and Al DiMeola.

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It's also funny that Jimmy Page is synonymous with the doubleneck when Mclaughlin played one far more than Jimmy ever did.

Well lets face it Mclaughlin doesn't look as iconic with the double neck as Page did !! <_<

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He used the double-neck in the 70s with Mahavishnu.

At some points he used it for the whole show.

He has a new electric band and a pretty funky website too.

http://www.johnmclaughlin.com/

and here's a fan page with lots of links

http://www.angelfire.com/oh/scotters2/jmc.html

As far as Jimmy Page and McLaughlin,

I do think there are some obvious similarities in their style as noted by Big Klu above.

Shards of frenzied guitar mixed with held over-bent notes.

Both are interested in 'eastern' musics that's for sure.

Jimmy is certainly more accessible.

McLaughlin's jazz experiences and more focussed eastern spiritualism took him on a different course. He was devoted to one belief and took the aforementioned Sri Chinmoy as a living spiritual guide. McLaughlin focuses on precision and passion.

Jimmy was equally interested in western spiritualism influenced by the four corners with Crowley as a posthumous spiritual guide and was more influenced by the blues, pop and youth culture. Page focuses on feel with technique second (or not number one, at least :lol: ).

Jan Hammer is most certainly on 'Birds of Fire' as well as 'The Inner Mounting Flame' which is just a head-swirling frenzy until 'You Know You Know' which uses the empty spaces so nicely to create a great tension with a few surprises along the way. One of my all time favorite songs.

Visions Of The Emerald Beyond has Jean Luc Ponty and Narada Michael Walden, (Hammer is gone by this time), plus a string and horn section. Mahavishnu Orchestra became more of an orchestra here, but the opening tracks Eternity's Breath Parts 1 and 2 are the stuff that blows minds. Actually, though, these are very similar in structure to King Crimson's Larks Tongues In Aspic the way it builds up from ambient new-aginess into a brutal circular riff and wild harmonics.

I saw McLaughlin only once. It was at the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival.

My Dad made plans to go to the festival and took me with him at the last minute.

We got there, he handed me the program and said, who do you wanna see?

At that point I had never actually heard McLaughlin's music, but had read about him in guitar magazines. Naturally, it was sold out, but one guy was selling an extra at the door. 1 extra. I don't know what my Dad did, but I had one of the greatest live musical experiences of my life. It was the John McLaughlin Trio with Trilok Gurtu and Domenic DiPiazza on bass (instead of Kai Eckhart who appears on the albums). I had never levitated from my seat during a show, but this was just one mind-expanding/blowing moment after another. And he was playing acoustic!!!! :)

Some of my favorite McLaughlin studio playing is on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, very raw. McLaughlin's early solo albums are also often overlooked.

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