10/01/2025
ON THIS DATE (52 YEARS AGO)
January 3, 1973 - The Mahavishnu Orchestra: Birds of Fire is released
# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 5/5
# Allmusic 5/5
Birds of Fire is Mahavishnu Orchestra's second album, released on January 3, 1973. It is the last studio album by the original Mahavishnu Orchestra line-up, before the group dissolved, although Between Nothingness and Eternity, a live album, was recorded and released later that same year.
Guitarist John McLaughlin was in on the birth of jazz-rock fusion, having played with both Miles Davis and Tony Williams' Lifetime in the early '70s. McLaughlin applied what he'd learned from these artists to his own pioneering fusion band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra. This second effort is the Orchestra's definitive recording. The tempestuous mix of jazz, rock, and Eastern influences is at its height here, and all of the players in this notoriously ego-plagued group challenge themselves--and each other--to push the envelope.
The themes, generally stated by McLaughlin and searing electric violinist Jerry Goodman, sound regal, unfolding in an elegant, magisterial way. Drummer Billy Cobham (another Miles alumnus) provides pounding polyrhythms over which McLaughlin and Goodman mix it up with keyboardist Jan Hammer. Hammer's synthesizer solos blazed a new trail for the synthesizer as a lead instrument, particularly in his guitar-like use of pitch-bend. The pastoral, acoustic strains of "Thousand Island Park" provide a brief respite before the listener is hurled back into the firestorm. "Hope" could be a distant cousin of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," while the closing "Resolution" bears similarities to Red-era King Crimson, making it plain that Birds of Fire takes both sides of the jazz-rock sound seriously.
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REVIEW
by Richard S. Ginell, allmusic
Emboldened by the popularity of Inner Mounting Flame among rock audiences, the first Mahavishnu Orchestra set out to further define and refine its blistering jazz-rock direction in its second -- and, no thanks to internal feuding, last -- studio album. Although it has much of the screaming rock energy and sometimes exaggerated competitive frenzy of its predecessor, Birds of Fire is audibly more varied in texture, even more tightly organized, and thankfully more musical in content. A remarkable example of precisely choreographed, high-speed solo trading -- with John McLaughlin, Jerry Goodman, and Jan Hammer all of one mind, supported by Billy Cobham's machine-gun drumming and Rick Laird's dancing bass -- can be heard on the aptly named "One Word," and the title track is a defining moment of the group's nearly atonal fury. The band also takes time out for a brief bit of spaced-out electronic burbling and static called "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love." Yet the most enticing pieces of music on the record are the gorgeous, almost pastoral opening and closing sections to "Open Country Joy," a relaxed, jocular bit of communal jamming that they ought to have pursued further. This album actually became a major crossover hit, rising to number 15 on the pop album charts, and it remains the key item in the first Mahavishnu Orchestra's slim discography.
TRACKS:
All tracks composed by John McLaughlin.
Side one
"Birds of Fire" – 5:50
"Miles Beyond" – 4:47
"Celestial Terrestrial Commuters" – 2:54
"Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" – 0:24
"Thousand Island Park" – 3:23
"Hope" – 1:59
Side two
"One Word" – 9:57
"Sanctuary" – 5:05
"Open Country Joy" – 3:56
"Resolution" – 2:09
