Although McLaughlin has recorded isolated tracks of unequivocal jazz (and appeared thus in a night club scene in Tavernier’s Round Midnight), the issue of an entire album of such material is a major event, and, in the case of Tokyo Live, one for considerable celebration.
The first notes of McLaughlin’s solo on 7 Nite Stand, the cooking blues which opens Tokyo Live, leave no doubt of his bop chops. The relatively soft (for McLaughlin) tone, the fluid phrasing and easy harmonic command (is the McLaughlin-Scofield influence all from older to younger man?) are revelations.
The echo of Tony Williams’s Lifetime in the organ, guitar and drums lineup is given musical form in places. DeFrancesco and Chambers lack none of Young’s and Williams’s technique, although DeFrancesco seems more musical when playing muted Milesian trumpet on When Love Is Far Away, than when overplaying the organ.
But minor reservations are swept aside by the sound of McLaughlin’s superb jazz. Even the one about the vibrato bar. It gives a distinctive twang, but used as enthusiastically as this, it also creates the impression of poor tuning.
Discography
7 Nite Stand; Hijacked; When Love Is Far Away; Little Miss Valley; Juju At The Crossroads; Vukovar; No Blues; Mattinale (74.58)
McLaughlin (elg); Joey DeFrancesco (org, t); Dennis Chambers (d). The Blue Note, Tokyo, December 16 & 18, 1993.
(Verve 521 870-2)