On Fire

In the second half of the 70's I fell out of love with much of the music I'd been listening to as a young teenager. The virtuosity of bands like the Mahavishnu Orchestra came to seem to me for the most part pointless, a kind of celebration of display for its own sake, so although retaining a soft spot for the incendiary first album The Inner Mounting Flame, 1971, (you never quite get over the first time) I didn't purchase the second album, Birds of Fire, though I did know the material from listening to others play it, and I never actually got to hear the second version of the band, the one including Jean-Luc Ponty on violin. I did listen to McLaughlin's Shakti, 1975, but they were a completely different kettle of fish, a signpost (if a kettle can play the role of signifier) to a new musical road leading eventually to Womad and all that. The fact that all these big name bands, like the Mahavishnus seemed to fall out with each over 'artistic differences' was confirmation for me that this was music all about ego.

I was wrong, of course. Yes, ego and display were involved, but then they always are, and the music was more than capable of transcending those dreary concerns. Listening to Birds of Fire today made me wonder what was wrong with my ears all those years ago, and made me question how I could possibly have been so dismissive of something I had previously recognised the value of. The beauty of Thousand Island Park was too fragile for my younger self, I'm afraid, and that's just one from several outstanding cuts. I suppose my penance should be to get hold of the albums I missed and do them justice, but that's hardly likely to involve any degree of suffering.

By the by, we saw Billy Cobham, the drummer on the first two Mahavishnu albums at the Singapore Womad a couple of years ago. He played a solo set on the upper stage, just a piece for drums lasting about 45 minutes and it was of the highest quality, leaving you wanting more - possibly the first drum solo I've ever heard that achieved that.