Jazz Rock

Larry Coryell: Rock Guitarist Moves Along, Shunning the Blues

Profile and Interview by Mike Jahn, New York Times, October 1968

IT SEEMS hard, almost impossible, to become a top rock guitarist without embracing the blues. But Larry Coryell, who is currently appearing at the Scene, ...

Miles Davis: What Made Miles Davis Go Pop?

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, June 1970

Richard Williams talks to bassist Dave Holland in New York ...

Jack Bruce And His Lifetime

Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, January 1971

LONDON – It's the universal riff. When some kid in Laguna Beach finally stops driving all the neighbors crazy with it, a kid sitting by ...

John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin: Man For All Seasons

Interview by Andrew Tyler, Disc and Music Echo, January 1972

Meet John McLaughlin the jazz giant, man of God, New York hermit and cult leader ...

Chicago: Chicago Is…

Interview by Andrew Tyler, Disc and Music Echo, May 1972

"IT'S RIDICULOUS really," said Chicago's composer and keyboard man, Bob Lamm, "Here I am in Hollywood, living in grand style and my parents are still ...

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds Of Fire (CBS)

Review by Ian MacDonald, NME, February 1973

THE INNER Mounting Flame was a very extreme record: extremely fast, extremely dazzling, extremely lyrical, extremely passionate. If you go along with Robert Fripp's "Head ...

Back Door: Just Who Do Back Door Think They Are?

Profile and Interview by Ian MacDonald, NME, February 1973

ONE OF the peripheral pleasures of a thriving music scene is being able to tell your friends about this great unknown group you've just discovered. ...

Tempest: Sound Of The Tempest

Interview by Tony Stewart, NME, May 1973

JON HISEMAN is sitting in a Viennese coffeehouse on a bright Sunday morning, and talking about the four-piece rock band he formed earlier this year. ...

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Music Of The Gods

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, June 1973

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Free Trade Hall, Manchester ...

Mahavishnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin: Natural High…

Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, June 1973

WITH A BAND playing music as tense and demanding as the Mahavishnu Orchestra's, one might be forgiven for expecting them to be (a) nerve wracked ...

Blood Sweat & Tears: New Sweat

Report and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, August 1973

THE WIND of change that spread through Blood Sweat and Tears a year ago is beginning to make itself felt at last. Their forthcoming album ...

John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin: It Was Natural Evolution

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, February 1974

NEW YORK: Although John McLaughlin's decision to disband the Mahavishnu Orchestra came as a surprise in the closing weeks of 1973, further reflections point to ...

Brian Auger: Straight Ahead Again

Interview by Michael Gray, Melody Maker, July 1974

BRIAN AUGER has been stomping round the commercial radio stations as part of his duty in promoting his latest album Straight Ahead by the Brian ...

Hatfield And The North: Hatfield & The North

Interview by Chris Salewicz, NME, November 1974

IN A LAND and a business where quickfire hype and quickfire playing are adjudged almost twin brothers, Hatfield And The North are very much on ...

Osibisa: Osibrock

Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, January 1975

IT'S JUST ANOTHER of the great Woodstock fallacies. Let's face it, aside from the Who, Havens, and lovable John B. Sebastian it was those nice ...

Larry Coryell: Dingwalls, London

Live Review by Max Bell, NME, July 1975

YOU COULD tell it was Jazz night at Dingwalls. ...

Tom Scott: Tom Scott In LA

Review by Max Bell, NME, July 1975

NAT HENTOFF really should know better. Having, in the past, written liner-notes for the very best (Davis, Trane) he now finds himself eulogising the "scope ...

Supercharge: The Nashville, London

Live Review by Chas de Whalley, NME, September 1975

SUPERCHARGE CERTAINLY HAVE something to celebrate. They've just signed a five year record contract, and are probably hoping to be very rich one of these ...

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Inner Worlds (CBS 69216)

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, February 1976

THE NAKED BODY of John McLaughlin, surmounted by a beaming face, hints, on the album cover, of purity, devotion and honesty. ...

Osibisa: Fairfield Hall, Croydon

Live Review by Chas de Whalley, NME, April 1976

ONLY CRITICAL SNOBBERY could deny Osibisa the distinction of having played one of the finest sets I have seen this side of Christmas. On this ...

Colosseum II: Strange New Flesh

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, June 1976

THERE COMES a moment during 'Dark Side Of The Moog', when the clamour of the strident arrangement fades away, and Jon Hiseman begins a simple, ...

Brand X: Unorthodox Behaviour

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, July 1976

SO MANY bands have broken up in the past, or experienced ill-feeling within the ranks because some of the members have felt restricted, tied-down, perhaps, ...

Weather Report: The True US Art Form

Interview by Harvey Kubernik, Melody Maker, July 1976

"PEOPLE ARE beautiful everywhere," says Josef Zawinul. "I think a real open person, I don't care what music he is playing, is going to be ...

Blood Sweat & Tears: Blood Sweat and Tears: More Than Ever (CBS) ***

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, August 1976

BST WERE one of the key bands of the late 60s who began to give rock a respectable musicianly image and yet I've always had ...

John McLaughlin & Shakti: The Bottom Line, NYC

Live Review by Miles, NME, April 1977

"McLAUGHLIN LOOKS GOOD with long hair," said Nancy. ...

Brand X: City Hall, Sheffield

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, September 1978

DESPITE ALL your Weather Reports, Coreas, Dukes and such, Brand X remain the sum total of British jazz-rock to reach what might reasonably be termed ...

Brand X: Bristol Hippodrome

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, September 1978

"BRAKES ARE locked. The steering is jammed!" Peter Robinson wrestled with the steering wheel as he drove like a Dalek around Bristol City centre last ...

Weather Report: City Hall, Newcastle

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, October 1978

IF YOU spent an evening in the company of some guys and the only word they uttered was 'Goodbye' you might well think they were ...

John McLaughlin & The One Truth Band: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978

THIS WAS A celebration of John McLaughlin's 25th anniversary as a guitar player — an event similarly rnarked by the recent Electric Guitarist album, which ...

Weather Report

Interview by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978

THIS YEAR'S Weather Report is twice as nice as last year's. And doubly dodgy. ...

Jack Bruce: Jack's Sound of 1979

Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, February 1979

IT SEEMED like the end of an era when we discovered, last week, that Jack Bruce and the Robert Stigwood Organisation have parted company. ...

Narada Michael Walden: Awakening (Atlantic)

Review by Pete Wingfield, Melody Maker, May 1979

SERENE MR WALDEN, Sri Chinmoy disciple and erstwhile drummer with the all-clad-in-white Mahavishnu Orchestra, surely knows which side his cosmic bread is buttered. Seems like ...

Jaco Pastorius: Beverly Theatre, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, November 1983

JACO PASTORIUS established himself as the most influential bassist of the late '70s during his extended tenure with Weather Report. But if Sunday night's 90-minute ...

James Blood Ulmer: Pied Bull, Islington, London

Live Review by Jack Barron, NME, April 1988

DRUNK ON BLOOD ...

John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis: John McLaughlin: God of Fusion

Retrospective and Interview by Colin Harper, unpublished, 1996

Author’s note: I reviewed John’s Cork Jazz Festival gig circa January 1996, and then interviewed him in London shortly after that. Features based on the ...

James Blood Ulmer

Interview by Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever, April 1998

THOUGHT THERE'S BEEN hundreds and thousands of hotshots who vowed to take the guitar to the next level after Jimi Hendrix broke the doors open, ...

Blood Sweat & Tears: Seeing Through The Past Darkly

Retrospective and Interview by Brian Torff, International Association of Jazz, 2005

HISTORY HAS a strange and highly selective memory. The past seems to lie in shadows with a filtered and distorted prism for a lens, and ...

Miles Davis: Mapping the Sonic Future: Miles Davis' In a Silent Way

Retrospective by Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, December 2009

IN THE MIDST of all this full-blown industry overkill of the 40th anniversary of this or the expanded deluxe edition commemorating 25 years of that, ...