Here`s one for those with experimental ears for jazz rock only.
I cant say that i like a lot of jazz which falls out of the be-bop
late 50`s category, the melodic and blues laced version that
suffered a severe die-back once Miles Davis went a bit bana-
nas and started watering down his traditional be-bop style
with a cumbersome mixture of acid rock and the funk rhy-
thms of James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone. Miles
was a great trumpet player, the best ever besides the one
and only Louie Armstrong, but his mostly unconvincing fo-
rays into jazz rock and rock jazz fusion were handicapped
from the start because jazz and rock together could never
be a happy union. Acid jazz as it become known after the
master trumpeters seminal recordings in the 60`s to me
is just a self indulgent sub-genre for jazz players who are
either not capable of playing real jazz or cant get a singer
who is capable of singing along with their unmelodic driv-
el. Miles fluked a few very decent and progressive think-
ing blows on the trumpet in the early 70`s, notably the
number one song on the Jack Johnson album that was
called `Right Now`,one of the best rock-jazz jams you
will get your hands on. Renowned session jazz guitarist
John McLaughlin, who played on this and many other
Miles Davis records, is a real guitarists guitarist. Very
little emotion, but technically he is considered to be a
master of his craft. He has played with virtually hun-
dreds of bit players in the jazz world over the years,
but one of his most legendary performances, if you
believe what a lot of jazz rock lovers would probaly
say, is an impromptu performance he played in the
city of Havana, Cuba, in 1979, with fellow jazz fusion-
ists Tony Williams on drums and eccentric and unor-
thodox Jaco Pastorius on bass. This one-off concert
supergroup didn`t even have a name officially when
they went on stage to play at the Havana Jam Festi-
val, but Pastorius casually called the band `The Trio
of Doom`. That name must have stuck, because that
is what appears as the title on the recordings of this
special night in Havana over thirty years ago. I am
not big on either McLaughlin or Pastorius to be per-
fectly honest, they are good at what they do but to
me they are typical jazz musicians who seek grati-
fication more from their own self indulgency than
from playing something which is a bit more main-
stream sounding and even slightly melodic. Both
of them revelled in creating a chordal mishmash
that some would regard as unlistenable torture,
Pastorius died in 1987 at the age of 36, english-
man McLaughlin is still going and is still active
in the music business under the new and exci-
ting name of Mahavishnu John McLaughlin. I
take it John spent time in India at some stage.
Tony Williams on drums is my favourite of the
three musically speaking, he is or was a power
drummer and he was just so damn good at get-
ting so many weird and wonderful sounds emi-
nating from a drum kit. The Havana recording
starts with a drum improvisation by Williams
which is magical hardcore stuff, nearly enough
to make Fidel Castro have a heart attack. The
first of three songs that McLaughlin wrote for
the big night `Dark Prince` along with Pasto-
rius`s contribution `Continuum` are far too
self indulgent but are musically muscular all
the same. Things get back to rhythm over-
drove like they started with William`s sec-
ond contribution `Para Oriente`, which is
the albums tour de force forsure. The on-
ly song of the four non-Williams songs on
the album that i really think is OK is num-
ber five `Are You The One, Are You The
One?`, one of the three from McLaughlin.
The Epic Legacy release of the recordings
in 2007 also has studio recordings of three
of the songs which were played in Havana,
they were recorded a week after the festi-
val in New York. I`m not a jazz rock lover,
and this album doesn`t get me all excited
or anything, on a scale of 1 to 10, it gets a
6, but the drumming of Tony Williams is
inspiring stuff. I`d give it a 9 out of 10.
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