Between Nothingness and Eternity is an excellent album.
They released a studio album recently which was in the can for almost 30 years
The Lost Trident Sessions and the liner notes tell a tale of a very high energy band subjected to constant touring stress, arguments over material and music rights, indifferent management, and a label that forgot about their last recording.
Some of that material is heard on the live recording also, particulary Open Country Joy.
( 4 Euro's - why are you still here?)
I have seen them twice in concert, and am still in awe.
Birds of Fire is an excellent recording, and one of the interesting footnotes to it is that Billy Cobham recorded IMF with a single kick drum set, but had just acquired a double kick before BOF was recorded.
There was no real 'jammin' in concert. All there music was tightly written and orchestrated and highly demanding in terms of key signatures, time changes and so forth. Their live performances did not deviate from their studio material.
Rick may not strike you as a great solo artist, but few people would even attempt to play a full MO set. I certainly couldn't
run in that league, and don't know anyone personally who can. He held his own with those guys, and held down a solid bottom for them. That is pretty impressive, as they were probably one of the most dynamic Jazz fusion groups of the era.
The real forces in the band were the triumvirate of Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman and John M. The obvious interplay of
voicings of these three trancended anything seen to that time in a fusion setting. While Charlie Parker and the 50's and 60's jazz artists were great, they never appealed to rock audiences the way MO did, which was a big breakthrough at that time.
Typically, MO was not a band you wanted to have open for you. I saw MO open for 'It's a Beautiful Day' at Carnegie Hall, and I am sure IABD's violin player was ready to kill himself after he saw Goodman smoke him on stage.
MO, though they appear to be loudly mixed, was not particularly loud in concert, and all the gear used at CH was quite small. JM played on an amp the size of a Fender Deluxe Reverb. His guitar of choice back then was a Gibson double neck 12/6. A year later he had changed to a single neck, as that guitar had fallen over in a dressing room and the neck was damaged. The Lost Trident sessions shows Rick Laird on a P Bass.
Of course, at Carnegie Hall, the acoustics are so good you don't NEED a lot of volume.
MCLaughlin had one other trick that I saw at another concert that blew me away. He broke a G string on the 6 on the double neck , and shifted to the 12 while a roadie strung the six while he was playing it on stage.
John shifted back to the 6 when the string was on, and
bent the note on the G to where he needed to be to play the passage he was doing. His arm flew out like a cobra striking, adjusted the peg, and kept on playing with no break.
My jaw literally dropped when I saw this, and to this day, it remains an object lesson to me of tuning accurately on the fly, and an indication of how well he heard, and knew his instrument.
I am happy to hear that 35 years later, their music still brings so much impact to the musicians who listen to it.
