JOHN MCLAUGHLIN — Devotion (aka Marbles) (review)

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN — Devotion (aka Marbles) album cover

Album · 1970 · Jazz Related Rock

3.5/5 · 2011-03-12
Abraxas

The John McLaughlin Experience

John McLaughlin is one of the most acclaimed jazz fusion guitarists alongside Allan Holdsworth, Larry Coryell and Al Di Meola, he’s considered one of the precursors of the shred and simply one hell of a versatile guitarist with an easily recognisable style, fusing Western and Eastern ideas, similarly to what his idol, John Coltrane, had done.

By 1970 John had already played with the impressive psychedelic jazz rock band, Lifetime, together with drum force Tony Williams and post-bop organist, Larry Young, as well as with the legendary Miles Davis and his innovating jazz experiments, most famously known for Bitches Brew. However, in none of these appearances he actually sounds like the McLaughlin we all know about, his style was still developing and maturing.

It’s actually on Devotion where John’s first exposure of his ferocious and unique style is shown in, I had always thought that it was in The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s debut released in 1971, but I was wrong. Here he finally drives his guitar crazy and sounds like if he’s putting it on fire, alike Hendrix showed us three years prior to this. And alike Hendrix, here he's repleted with wah-wah and other guitar effects, all in all making his guitar more akin to the psychedelic era.

But beyond McLaughlin’s amazing guitar, we’ve got once again beside him, the former jazz organist, Larry Young, now mainly playing one-of-a-kind trippy ambiences not known by many (or any) organists, who would later also repeat these special auras on the more famous guitar-devotion album, Love Devotion & Surrender, with Carlos Santana. There’s also Buddy Miles, from the Band of Gypsys, a very powerful and groovy drummer, plus a rather unknown but still competent bassist, Billy Rich.

Definitely not alike The Mahavishnu Orchestra, this is mainly psychedelic jazz rock more in the vein of Emergency! by The Tony Williams Lifetime, but John actually matures a bit from that session, and makes a much less improvised affair, mainly noticing in the length of the tunes, with five tracks out of six being below the 6 minute mark. Also, what is noticeable like I already stated, is the man’s guitar style, already fully developed in the beast that is very well known in his main band. It’s really surprising to already hear most of McLaughlin’s famous licks at such an early stage of his career, even though they're played on top of rather simplistic psychedelic/blues inspired tunes.

Devotion overall is really a special album and it should have made a bigger impact if it had had a better record label. But it’s really no big deal, since one year after this, John's abilities were recognised with his main band’s debut, Inner Mounting Flame.

This is far from the technical outburst of The Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin here is simply having a lot of fun with incredible out-worldly concise jams which are never self-indulgent or long to bore you. Fans of Hendrix, Tony Williams Lifetime, Miles’ 69-75 releases, and any other psychedelic/improvised (jazz) rock record should check this.