I met
guitarist Johhn McLaughlin in
Auger's trio (upright bass) and he decided to add baritone sax and guitar,
John was the guitarist. Later, after I moved to
stayed at my "pad", we ate macrobiotic food
at Mishio Kushis restaurant
on
Newbury St and talked about meditation. He was a disciple of Sri Chinmoy at
the time.
After I had quit Buddy Rich's Big Band in 1970, I moved back to
Shortly after, John called to say he was forming a group,"Mahavishnu
Orchestra" and would I like to be the bassist. So, back
to
I played mostly bass guitar, some acoustic (My main instrument). We
rehearsed every day at a loft in Soho NYC. It was
quite an adjustment for
all of us, there was very little music in 4/4 time, everything was based on
Indian ragas and odd time signatures like 7/4 19/8 10/8 etc. Also the volume
was off the charts! I wore wax ear plugs to protect my ears. We had our
first gig in August 1971 at a tiny club in the Village and then made our
first album,"The Inner Mounting Flame" for
CBS Records. The day we were to
begin recording, I slammed a car door and jammed my left thumb in it. It
swelled up like a baseball!! Turned black!! I HAD to make the date, we had a
really tight budget, couldn't cancel. The pain was beyond description but
somehow I managed to make it. We recorded the entire album in 2 days, most
of the pieces in ONE take! (Unheard of in those days, many "famous"
rock
groups spent a month on one composition)
Later that year we sold out Carnegie Hall and from there, it was off to the
races.
I am a hard core jazz musician, grew up on Miles Davis, Bill Evans, John
Coltrane. My favorite bassists were (are) Ray Brown, Paul Chambers and Scott
LaFaro. Mahavishnu was a
real departure for me and a very interesting one at
that. It ended early 1974, much too soon, in my honest opinion.
So there you have it, hope it's not too long winded..................
Rick
Laird
From