John McLaughlin: Interview

Artist Bio:

John McLaughlin (born 4 January 1942, Doncaster, West Riding of Yorkshire, England), also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer. His music includes many genres of jazz, and rock, which he coupled with an interest in Indian classical music to become one of the pioneering figures in fusion. In 2010, guitarist Jeff Beck called him "the best guitarist alive". In 2003, McLaughlin was ranked 49th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Tabla player Zakir Hussain has often referred to him as one of the greatest and most important musicians of our time.

After contributing to several key British groups of the early sixties and making his first solo record Extrapolation (with Tony Oxley and John Surman) he moved to the USA where he played with Tony Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his landmark electric jazz-fusion albums In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew, A Tribute to Jack Johnson and On The Corner. His 1970's electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and rock with Indian influences.

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