Brandon Tenold is just going to hate me, but John McLaughlin HAS to be one of THE most overrated guitarists in the history of guitar playing. I’ve yet to hear anything he doesn’t completely ruin by his over-indulgence, supposedly (but unprovably) in Ragas or some other mystical bullshit way of playing.

No, this review isn’t about McLaughlin, the guitarist who is hardly unsung, but sickeningly over-sung, but about the fine musicians that accompanied him, and McLaughlin the composer.

Despite his obvious deficiencies in the improvisational department — ie, “play whatever you like at finger-bleeding speed with mechanical precision and everyone will go “Wow!!”, without any considerations to the actual music” — McLaughlin DID write all the stuff on this, his solo outing, his albums with Mahavishnu, and plenty more besides — and the compositions are FANTASTIC and well worth splashing out a couple of quid if you find them in the bargain bin. But you won’t listen to this stuff very often, so don’t pay full price if you want to maximise your enjoyment and minimise your disappointment.

McLaughlin’s debut features Tony Oxley (ex Ronnie Scott house drummer) on drums, Brian Odgers on upright bass and John Surman on sax (soprano and baritone). Surman had previously also played with Ronnie Scott, and also such luminaries as Mike Westbrook, Graham Collier and Alexis Korner. 

With such a pedigree’d jazz/blues focussed backing group, you almost couldn’t help but have a competent album, and McLaughlin himself had played with many of the blues greats, including Alexis Korner, Graham Bond and Brian Auger. McLaughlin was autodidiactically taught, which explains a great deal, and while one cannot help but admire the long hours and patience that went into honing such terrific technical skills, such as playing fast, and playing very fast — as many of his fans did with gaping mouths, it has to be said that his ear for improvisation never fully developed, if, indeed, it was ever there.

On to the music on this album — why you should listen to it — the backing band are rock solid, precise, and loose and groovy, going with the flow simultaneously. When they rock, they really rock, and come up with something approaching magic… but then there’s that horrible buzzing gadfly of a guitar that swarms and swoops all over this delectable confection, and all but ignores the wonderful music. And that’s a perfect summary of almost everything else McLaughlin ever did.

I wonder slightly if McLaughlin had been listening to “A Kind of Blue” before he went into the recording studio (I bet he listened to it frequently, and who could blame him?) — because Extrapolation starts off sounding like something from Miles Davis classic album — not much fusion going on here, before that jaunty main theme starts — then it gets a bit wibbly, but we can forgive it for it fits the style nicely. Trouble is, as the piece progresses, the wibble gets worse. This is easily one of the weakest compositions on the album, and can safely be skipped, if you’re a jazz veteran.

The band do a magnificent job of keeping up, and trying to make the backing fit — and we get a wonderful sax solo, during which McLaughlin shuts up a bit and gives us some rather random rhythm stabs, like he’s just filling in the time and isn’t really sure of what to play. After a while, those flying away sections get a bit annoying — on the third time it feels like there aren’t any real compositional ideas left to expose, so we’ll just stick to the old song format instead. Then we round off with the jaunty theme of earlier, and another irritating fly-away section — a very poor attempt, compositionally, even though it’s impressive technically.

This segues nicely into “It’s Funny”, the first minute or so of which is blissful — but you can feel agitation from the guitar, which doesn’t really feel like it’s fitting in anywhere. Occasionally a nice chord is struck, and overall, this piece is more than listenable to — there’s a great smooth vibe coming from the band… but then McLaughlin tries some soloing. This is laughable — like a novice finding his way around a fretboard for the first time, widdling away randomly. I’m even more impressed by the way the band really try hard to turn this into a worthwhile piece — there’s some superb bass and drum interplay ‑real mind-reading stuff that warms the cockles of your musical heart. Then Sulman treats us to sax and all is bliss… well… nearly all.

I’m not sure who Arjen is, but if the next piece is his bag, then it’s got holes in. An over long intro segues into the best piece of laid back, smooth jazz so far — real chill-out stuff, only spoiled very slightly by the guitar. This moves to a blues outro, which is enhanced by beautiful space in the playing from all. Sulman especially delivers some gorgeous sax.

The tempo is then raised for Pete the Poet — which starts fantastically, with some great synchronised work from McLaughlin and Sulman. A rather odd, but acceptable bass solo takes us into a build-up passage which appears to Peter out and become something extremely messy, like they’d taken one too many happy pills and suddenly found themselves coming up simultaneously. This is quite nasty — almost unlistenable, with no-one sure of what they’re doing — let alone anyone else. This isn’t free jazz, it’s a train wreck, partially saved by a drum solo that takes us back to the first theme, like everyone had completely run out of ideas. Filler.

There then follows a piece entitled “This is for us to share”, which starts with a somewhat tuneless chord progression on the guitar, then some gorgeous “Busker” sax and nicely restrained guitar over simple bass notes — perfect for a summer evening by the river with a beer or three — but it does tend to teeter on the brink of sanity every now and then, and my summer evening gets shattered — but I’m keeping the beer. Once this happens, the music is again lost, as everyone noodles around trying to find a handle, or feeling the effects of the happy pills again.

“Spectrum” is wonderfully random — here, the band keep a perfect handle on reality, but spin a web around it — this is the difference between noise and jazz of a free nature (not completely free jazz, of course). McLaughin gets a bit unsure of what key we’re in, and loses it rhythmically fairly often — you can hear the drummer pounding to remind him of where the beat is within the groove. The main theme is unexciting and noodly — then we move into “Binky’s Beam”. 

No sign of Death’s horse here, but it feels good to have the tempo taken back like this, and there are some tasty sounds emerging from my speakers from everyone — see, I’m not a discriminate McLaughlin hater, just someone who digs good music when they hear it. The extensive synchronised passages work really well, and the restrained soloing is actually in key. The number of meter and tempo changes is remarkable (until you figure out that there are actually only a couple of them that get frequently repeated, like a complicated loop — but that’s to the music’s advantage), and the music really flows well while McLaughlin sticks to the blues, albeit a rather happy interpretation. 

In this 7+ minuter, it’s Sulman who gets a bit indulgent rather than the main man, but that apart, “Binky’s Beam” is exactly why you should hear this album.

The tempo is taken back even further for “Really to Know”, and I enter the smoky atmosphere of Ronnie Scott’s at 3am on a cold Thursday in November. Truly, this is wonderful stuff — although it didn’t really need the guitar chords, or, indeed, the noodling that starts up halfway through when the tempo suddenly picks up — this is not as horrible as earlier, though, and the tempo is brought back down for some nifty, atmospheric percussion work.

Two for Two sees a sudden shift back up to 5th gear, and some more great synchronised lines — but then what are those stupidly fast guitar rhythms that appear to be played in the bath? Bleh. Over a minute of this, then finally some bass — is it going to kick in yet? No… but it does a bit later, and it’s more of the random stuff — Oxley is kicking ass, and gives some great percussion — good choice Tony. Better than trying to go along with all that racket and noodly nonsense.

Finally we have Peace Piece — cool title, and mellow guitar, sounding a little like Pink Floyd’s “Grantchester Meadows” to start — but then it all gets rather forced, with fudged notes and over-heavy accents ruining what could have been a reasonable, mellow piece, bleeding nasty fret buzz all over the place — and for what? “I’m putting a ton of “feeling” into this, so it’s all cool”? 

I bet he played it with his eyes tight shut.

His ears too.

It’s “Inner Mounting Flame” that’s THE McLaughlin album to hear, but be warned, you’ll be McLaughing when you hear the solo guitar work — or more likely crying, because the compositions on that album are extraordinary in their 1337 beauty and inventiveness, while the guitar work is extraordinary in it’s awfulness — much worse than here, hence this is a good place to start to explore the unsung musicians that are John McLaughlin’s backing musicians.