Not really Jazz, not really Big Band...

[imagegod]

Or maybe it is. (Actually 'Fusion' seems to be the genre). But for all you Big Band/Jazz people, I thought you might enjoy an album recommendation:
Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004VWA8/qid=1121361969/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/104-0671935-4975126?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Enjoy!

[Styxx]

Or maybe it is. (Actually 'Fusion' seems to be the genre). But for all you Big Band/Jazz people, I thought you might enjoy an album recommendation:
Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004VWA8/qid=1121361969/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/104-0671935-4975126?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

Enjoy! Wow, I still have this on vinyl. Yup, "Fusion" was what we called it then. I'm going to have to dig this one up and burn it to disk now. Thanks for the post!

[imagegod]

Wow, I still have this on vinyl. Yup, "Fusion" was what we called it then. I'm going to have to dig this one up and burn it to disk now. Thanks for the post!
No prob...all you young-uns out there aught to give it a gander...it's music that very different yet still very well put together.

[squoze]

I remember after first listening to this I thought, "So this is what jazz is all about...taking a musical phrase and repeating it and expanding on it...don't worry about standard time signatures, keys, etc."
It really blew me away. I can't imagine why I actually bought it (8-track, I think), but I'm glad I did. It was 1977--it was probably on the discount rack then.
Definantly some wicked guitar-violin playin'. I'd never heard a guitar (or violin) played that way before.
How does the new remastering sound?

[FredProgGH]

Always preferred Inner Mounting Flame myself, but they are both good.

[tradivoro]

Yeah, I'm with Fred here, Inner Mounting Flame was my favorite from that time period... Birds of fire was good though...

[joaz]

Me too, Inner Mounting Flame is the one.It has the most beautiful ballad on it."A Lotus on Irish Streams".
regards

[thesoundsmith]

I left my jazz organ gig and came out to California to study Classical Hindustani music in 1968. After three years, I had to leave the school, one of the hardest choices I ever had to make, but as I got back into jazz performance, i discovered the synthesizer, and then the Mahavishnu sound. Jazz that used Indian phrasing, meters and pitch bend. Changed my life. Two years later, I'm living in Big Sur, playing with a band that gas about a sixty song repetiore - maybe a third of the tunes in 4/4. We used to play Birds of Fire, Resolution (the perfect break song...) and others of theirs, along with the Miles/Weather Report traditional fusion repetoire, a lot of Coltrane, plus a bunch of originals. Some of the most interesting music I have had the fortune to experience, and some of the wierdest parties. But we'd be playing a 17/4 shuffle, or a power rock anthem in 15, and they'd be boogying.

oddly enough, three of my songs from that era have just been released by the Prophetz of Time and Space - with Jerry Goodman on violin. An unexpected treasure.