The Supernova that Was Jazz-Rock Fusion

The brief but revolutionary association between guitar legend John McLaughlin and the precocious talent of young drumming phenom Billy Cobham lasted only three years but their meeting and collaboration represents an event similar yo that of finding the "God particle" in the CERN Large Hadron Supercollider: It produced the paradigm-shattering and new-paradigm defining phenomenon that was The Mahavishnu Orchestra--which was, in my opinion, the most influential single album to the realization of the peak manifestations of Jazz-Rock Fusion as well as a huge influencer to the future choices of Progressive Rock artists.  - March 1969: The material that would end up on Larry Coryell 's Spaces was recorded in New York City in March of 1969. John and Billy served as session players for Larry during the March recording sessions.      The initial date proved to be a wash as Chick Corea and John McLaughlin were too loose and "high" from having recently (February 18) parti...

The mysterious and ethereal sound of Eberhard Weber's "underwater" bass playing first came to my attention in 1978 when a local radio station in my university town kept playing songs from The Following Morning on their late night programming. Afraid that nothing could ever compare to the transportive music of Side One of that album, I was very hesitant to make any further purchases into his burgeoning catalogue of music, but I could not help but notice his presence on several other non-Weber albums that I purchased (Pat Metheny, Gary Burton). Also, I was inhibited by the illusion that Eberhard's magic could only happen in the company/collaboration of another sensitive pianist like Rainer Brüninghaus. Plus, I had tried a few other ECM records and had less success connecting with those albums than I wanted or expected. (The Manfred Eicher touch seemed to provide starkly spacious music of impeccable sound clarity and musicianship but at compositional sophistication leve...