I: Introduction

Birds of Fire is a 1973 studio album by the jazz rock fusion band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, their second, and the last that the original line-up would release, before British guitarist/leader John McLaughlin dissolved the band and got all new members. Birds of Fire is considered, along with the band’s 1971 debut, The Inner Mounting Flame, to be one of their greatest albums.

The original line-up of the Mahavishnu Orchestra was a truly international band, with–as I said above, McLaughlin from England, American electric violinist Jerry Goodman (formerly of The Flock), Czech keyboardist Jan Hammer, Irish bassist Rick Laird, and Panamanian-American drummer Billy Cobham. Bassist Tony Levin would have been McLaughlin’s first choice to be in the band, but he didn’t get it because of a missed telephone call, which his mother-in-law received, mishearing the message and telling him, “Some guy, Murray Vishnu, asked about joining his orchestra.”

The music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, apart from being a fusion of rock instrumentation and rhythms with the harmonic sophistication and improvisation of jazz, is characterized as also incorporating elements from Indian and Western classical music (e.g., Goodman’s classical violin technique, as well as how the ornamentation in McLaughlin’s guitar solos imitates such ornamentation in Indian music). Furthermore, the music is known for its flashy, virtuosic playing, complicated riffs, and odd and irregular time signatures–all hallmarks of 1970s jazz fusion.

II: Why ‘Mahavishnu’?

The name of the band was derived from the name that McLaughlin’s then-guru, the Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, gave him. “Maha” in Sanskrit means “great,” and “Vishnu” is from the Hindu god of preservation. So “Mahavishnu Orchestra” is a fancy, ostentatious way of saying “the John McLaughlin Band.”

On the one hand, the name of the band sounds like something from Eastern philosophy–typically about a renunciation of the ego while on a quest to attain peace of mind and enlightenment. On the other hand, though, the name of the band sounds rather pretentious, especially since the band shows off its technical skill in a manner that, to put it mildly, raises suspicions of inflated egos. With these observations, we come to the central contradiction of the band.

There’s a tension between the philosophical renunciation of the ego and its glorification. This tension can be seen and heard as a recurring motif, if you will, throughout Birds of Fire, just as it could also be heard throughout The Inner Mounting Flame, their live album, Between Nothingness and Eternity, and The Lost Trident Sessions, released in 1999 and including three tracks heard on the live album.

A number of tensions led to the break-up of the original band, including the pressures of sudden fame, exhaustion, and a lack of communication. Another source of irritation to McLaughlin’s bandmates was how sole songwriting credit was always given to him, an ironic thing given how he was supposed to be on a spiritual path with Chinmoy that promoted “love, devotion, and surrender” (a kind of Bhakti Yoga) as well as “self-transcendence.” A follower of Chinmoy is supposed to renounce those negative qualities that prevent union with the Divine.

Chinmoy’s teachings were influenced, of course, by Hinduism, hence McLaughlin’s name of “Mahavishnu.” Union with the Divine is, essentially, union of Atman with Brahman as a result of renouncing the ego. The guitar player had to abstain from recreational drugs and alcohol, live a celibate lifestyle, and adopt a vegetarian diet. McLaughlin also had to keep his hair short because it was Chinmoy’s wish for him to do so. His teachings did, however, show tolerance for and inclusiveness of other religious and spiritual traditions.

Speaking of other spiritual traditions, the tension between indulging and denying the ego in the Mahavishnu Orchestra philosophy can be associated with Mahayana Buddhism’s dialectical unifying of nirvana and samsara. Also, incidentally, Chinmoy himself was often accused of leading a cult, and of sexual misconduct, even sexual abuse. McLaughlin would stop following Chinmoy by the mid-1970s.

Here is a link to the entire album.

III: Birds of Fire

The title of the album and the first track is inspired by the fourth line of “Revelation,” a poem by Chinmoy seen on the back cover of the album. It is about the soul’s joyful realization of the Divine, Atman coming to be at one with Brahman.

Brahman is referred to in the poem as “God” (which should not be confused with the God of monotheism, for Brahman is of pantheism; “God” here isn’t separate from creation, but is at one with it); Brahman is also called “the Infinite,” “the One,” “Him,” “the Supreme,” and “Immortality.” (And for McLaughlin, “music is the face of God,” which should help us understand how the music we hear on the album is intimately linked with his spirituality.)

“His secret Play” would refer to lila, where creation is an outcome of the playful nature of the Divine. “Ignorance Dream” would be the result of the illusion of maya, and the poet has passed beyond it, therefore, he will “sob” and “grieve” no more.

His soul is “above the toil of life…a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.” If the poet’s soul has achieved enlightenment and moksha, though, why would it be “a Bird of Fire“? Shouldn’t fire be associated with egoistic desire, that which is blown out in nirvana, and so the very antithesis of the bliss of enlightenment?

This contradiction parallels what I said above about the tension between the renunciation of the ego and its overindulgence (the five musicians showing off their virtuosity, McLaughlin getting sole credit for writing all of the music, the premature break-up of the original line-up when they should have been at the very height of their powers, and even Chinmoy’s sexual misconduct). It’s the dialectical unity of nirvana and samsara.

That the Atman is a bird of fire, a being burning with desire, reflects the spiritual conflict and difficulty of attaining enlightenment. One often has a habit of thinking of religion, spirituality, and philosophy as being things of mere sentimentality, a quick and easy way of ending one’s pain with simple, black-and-white solutions. Placing oneself seriously on that path, though, would make it clear very quickly that nothing could be farther from the truth. It is a path constantly beset with temptation to go astray.

Understanding such difficulties is how we can find the dialectical Aufhebung between the need to renounce the desires of the ego and to overindulge them. This is the bird of fire of Atman, “winging the Infinite” of Brahman.

So, “Birds of Fire” can refer to all five members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, showing off their virtuosity and playing with all of their fiery passion. For Goodman, Hammer, Laird, and Cobham were struggling through life no less than McLaughlin was, and we can hear that struggle in the music.

In a review of Birds of Fire for All About Jazz in 2002, Walter Kolosky wrote that the title track “is a fusion classic. John McLaughlin scares the hell out of his guitar…” The opening track will “frighten a musical neophyte…it’s guaranteed to send him or her fleeing.” One would think those seeking enlightenment would prefer listening to peaceful, New Age music. Birds of Fire, and the title track in particular, are the diametrical opposite of such easy listening.

The opening title track begins with Cobham banging a gong a number of times. McLaughlin comes in playing arpeggios, each ascending in fast groups of five, five, five, and three. These dense arpeggiated chords are in A♭ and B♭, played first with distortion, then clean, on a twelve-string electric guitar. Note that McLaughlin was known for playing double-neck guitars onstage with the band, a twelve-string and a six-string, the latter for playing leads.

The bass and violin come in next, doubling each other octaves apart with this line: A♭, A♭, G♭-E♭-A♭, A♭, G♭-E♭-G♭-A♭-B♭, B♭, A♭-F-B♭, B♭, A♭-F-A♭-B♭. Cobham has still been hitting the gong, but he soon also comes in on the drums.

This riff they’ve been playing, still with the twelve-string guitar arpeggios in the background, is in 9/8 time, which could be subdivided 4+5 or 3+3+3, depending on the players (i.e., Cobham is playing it 3+3+3). McLaughlin and Goodman are doubling each other with a fiery, high-pitched lead, McLaughlin now playing his six-string in unison with Goodman.

After that, McLaughlin goes into a blistering solo, with his six-string using distortion. This playing he’s doing is what Kolosky above must have meant by saying that “McLaughlin scares the hell out of his guitar with his melodic convulsions.” “Birds of Fire” is clearly not the music of the quietened mind of the enlightened. This, if anything, is the music of the spiritually troubled, perhaps beginning a quest for peace of mind out of sheer desperation from having experienced in full the horrors of the world.

After McLaughlin’s solo, he and Goodman return to that lead they’d played together. They end the lead with fast ascending and descending triplets, then go into a bridge in 3/4 with a shuffle rhythm at a slightly slower tempo. Again, McLaughlin and Goodman are doubling each other, playing a lead in unisons. It’s in B at first, then it modulates elsewhere; it also switches to a bar in 4/4 before returning to the main riff in 9/8.

Now, Jan Hammer does a solo on the synth. Part of his solo imitates, to an extent, those arpeggios McLaughlin played on the twelve-string. Then they return to the high-pitched lead played on the violin and six-string, and back to the bridge, then back to the main riff in 9/8.

As the main riff is fading out with McLaughlin doubling the bass and violin line I described towards the beginning of the track, Goodman adds a few high-pitched violin licks.

IV: Miles Beyond (Miles Davis)

As I said above, every track on this album is credited solely to McLaughlin, including this one, though the title sometimes includes “Miles Davis” in parentheses as I gave it above, and this may give off the mistaken impression that the Mahavishnu Orchestra here is doing a cover of an old Miles Davis piece of music. No: the hyphenated “Miles Davis” is just meant as a dedication to McLaughlin’s former bandleader (the closest you’ll come to a Miles Davis track of this title is “Miles Ahead,” from the 1957 album of the same name, and it sounds completely different from the second track on Birds of Fire).

McLaughlin played with Davis on the albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Live-Evil, On the Corner, Big Fun, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson. On Bitches Brew, there’s even a four-minute track named “John McLaughlin,” on which he plays guitar licks over Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul playing electric piano variations on a riff, in C, essentially of B♭-A-G-F-G…F-G♭-G♭/G♮.

Of course, Bitches Brew, released in 1970, is considered one of the seminal albums ushering in the jazz fusion genre, and apart from including McLaughlin, Corea, and Zawinul among its musicians, the album’s musical innovations spawned several jazz fusion bands in the 1970s alongside the Mahavishnu Orchestra, including Corea’s Return to Forever and Zawinul’s Weather Report. What’s more, Lenny White of Return to Forever played drums on Bitches Brew, as did Cobham on “Feio”; and Wayne Shorter of Weather Report played soprano sax on the album, as did Weather Report percussionists Don Alias and Airto Moreira.

Anyway, “Miles Beyond” opens in G major with Jan Hammer improvising the track’s main riff on the Fender Rhodes electric piano. It’s chords of G major, F major, then going up to the subdominant with chords of B♭major, B♮major, and C major, then back to the B♭ major and to the tonic with F major, G♭major, and resolving back to G♮ major. The music is in 6/4 time, subdivided 4+2.

If one were to regard the tracks of the album as chapters to a narrative about McLaughlin’s “pilgrim’s progress,” so to speak, of a spiritual journey from sin and ignorance to the peace and enlightenment of Chinmoy’s teachings, then this track would find McLaughlin ‘miles beyond’ the spiritually troubled beginnings of that quest as understood on “Birds of Fire.” Still, the tension and passion felt here on “Miles Beyond” means he still has “miles to go before [he] sleep[s].”

After that electric piano opening, with Goodman softly playing the tonic on the violin in the background, Laird and Cobham come in, Laird playing the same basic riff of F-G♭, G♮, F…B♭-B♮, C, B♭, etc., with Hammer still improvising on the Fender Rhodes. Then McLaughlin and Goodman come in, playing F, C, E♭, B♭, A♭, the former playing these as power chords.

Now, McLaughlin and Goodman are playing the main riff with the rest of the band, with McLaughlin’s power chords, and it’s two bars, one in 4/4, and the other in 5/4. Then the guitar plays a lead, doubled on the violin, and it’s in 9/4 time (3+3+3); this is heard three times, then the passage is finished off with two bars in 4/4.

Next, Goodman does a violin solo, but in pizzicato. As I’ve seen him do in a video of a performance of another piece of Mahavishnu music, he is presumably doing this pizzicato solo not by holding the violin under his chin, but rather as if it were a small guitar or a ukulele. He does some impressively fast licks–using pull-offs–in the middle of the solo. The rest of the band is silent, except for Hammer, who is giving Goodman a very soft Fender Rhodes accompaniment.

After Goodman’s solo, the rest of the band comes back in full force, with McLaughlin playing those power chords again. As this is going on, Cobham throws in some fast, powerful drumming. Then at the climax of the track, McLaughlin does a fiery solo, his plucking of the notes like bullets fired out of a machine gun. He may be “Miles Beyond” the spiritual turbulence he experienced in “Birds of Fire,” but the passion of his playing here shows that he, as I said above, still has a long way to go before attaining the peace of enlightenment.

The track ends with McLaughlin and Goodman playing that doubled lead in 9/4, then the two bars in 4/4.

V: Celestial Terrestrial Commuters

This is one of the very best tracks, if not the very best one, on the entire album. It is pure fire. I still remember the first time I heard it as a teen on the vinyl I’d bought and played on the family’s stereo in our living room. I was thrilled and energized.

If by “celestial,” we mean the heavens of nirvana, and by “terrestrial,” we mean the earth in all of its sin, desire, and attachment, then the “commuters” are either going back and forth between sin and enlightenment, or they’re leaving enlightenment altogether and commuting back to the samsara of attachment. Given the wildly passionate wailing of the musicians here, we’re clearly far away from the peace of nirvana.

Cobham begins the track by hitting the crash cymbals and drums to punctuate the irregular rhythm we’ll hear for most of the song. This rhythm is a 19-beat cycle of sixteenth notes, which I’d notate as alternating bars of 3/4 (or 6/8) and 7/16. It could otherwise be thought of as bars of 4/4, but with an additional three sixteenth notes at the end of each bar.

The track is in G, a kind of expanded tonality of G major and G minor, with a Mixolydian/Dorian feel (i.e., with the flat 7th). The guitar and violin start with ascending lines, eighth notes of G (open G on the guitar), D, B, G, E, C♯, a sixteenth rest, then G-F-D-G-E-C♯ in sixteenth notes. This riff is heard twice, then the guitar and violin double each other with a high-pitched lead, while that ascending lead I just described is now played by Hammer on the Fender Rhodes.

In terms of its harmonic progression, it starts at the tonic, in G, then moves up to the supertonic, in A, then back down to the G tonic. While back in the tonic, instead of twice hearing the 19-beat cycle I described above as alternating 3/4 (6/8) and 7/16, we hear–after one time of that cycle–an 18-beat cycle I’d notate as a bar of 4/4, then of 5/4 (this is just one time, then we’re back to the 19-beat cycle). This in turn leads to a move up a tritone to C♯, then down a minor third to B♭, and back to the tonic in G, with the guitar and violin playing the ascending lines from the beginning.

Next, Hammer plays a mind-blowing solo on the synth, backed up by Laird and Cobham. McLaughlin and Goodman come back with the ascending riff, and Hammer finishes off with a few more tasty synth licks.

Now it’s time for McLaughlin and Goodman to trade licks back and forth…and boy, do those two ever wail! At one point, while in G, McLaughlin plays a standard blues-rock lick of bending notes from C to D, a G, and a bend from F to G, these are done twice; I call it a standard lick, but McLaughlin’s execution of it, in the context of the music, is face-melting!

After a violin lick, McLaughlin comes back with a quick quintet of descending sixteenth notes–the first, a C bent up from B♭, then B♭-G-F-D; these are played three times, then four more descending sixteenth notes lead back to more violin licks. While in C♯, Goodman plays and arpeggiated C♯ major chord. Then after a final, high-pitched lead from McLaughlin in B♭, we cone back to G major, with both McLaughlin and Goodman playing licks at the same time.

Now, still in G major, the guitar and violin are playing a lead mostly of Ds, Bs, and F, first in the 19-beat cycle, then in the two bars of 4/4 and 5/4 with some descending notes. Then Hammer does a synth lick in A. Back to the Ds, Bs, and F lead, then another synth lick in C♯ and B♭.

The lead of Ds, Bs, and F is done again, but this time, all in the 19-beat cycle, and then McLaughlin and Goodman return to the doubled, high-pitched lead heard before the first synth solo. Hammer helps out playing some of the lead on the synth.

The song ends with a variation on the ascending lead, done to a different chord progression, and with an added three sixteenth notes, ending on a high C.

VI: Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love

This track, not even thirty seconds long, was just a spontaneous soundcheck improvisation that was included on the album as a kind of interlude, almost psychedelic-sounding, between “Celestial Terrestrial Commuters” and “Thousand Island Park.” The band was just testing out their equipment.

So, unlike McLaughlin’s other compositions for the band, this short oddity carries no grand philosophical or spiritual meaning. The title, nonetheless, is intriguing in how it can be related to the broader theme on the album as I’ve described it. Bullets cause harm, and are lethal, but these ones are of pure love. They’re also made of sapphire, a precious gemstone.

“Sapphire” can also be heard to pun on fire. So in the title we can hear the dialectical tension, once again, between the fire of passion and the pure love of the devotion in Chinmoy’s Bhakti-yoga-style of spirituality. The spiritual struggle is a valuable one, like a sapphire, for it is only through such a struggle that one can eventually become enlightened, always dodging those bullets, so like the love arrows of Eros, provoking fiery sensual desire.

VII: Thousand Island Park

This track, like “A Lotus on Irish Streams” on The Inner Mounting Flame, is the acoustic piece on Birds of Fire. But whereas the former piece was played by a trio of McLaughlin, Goodman, and Hammer (on piano), the latter is played by a trio of McLaughlin, Hammer, and Laird (on double bass).

The piece is mostly a showcase of McLaughlin’s acoustic guitar playing skills, with Hammer’s piano right hand largely doubling the written acoustic guitar melodies (though not in exact time with McLaughlin, as the piece is, to a great extent, of a free rhythm), and with Laird mostly playing root notes.

As a more sedate, peaceful piece of music, “Thousand Island Park” can be heard as a moment of considerable spiritual progress from the passion heard on the previous tracks…miles beyond “Miles Beyond.” While Thousand Island Park is, of course, a real place in New York State, there are interesting connotations to be heard in the title of McLaughlin’s piece, understood from the point of view of the grand philosophical and spiritual meaning of his music in the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Nirvana was compared by the Buddhists to an island (dipa) in the Sutta Nipata, a place of refuge from decay and death. How much more peaceful would a thousand of such islands be!

Furthermore, according to the Lalitavistara Sūtra, Queen Maya gave birth to the Buddha in a tranquil grove or garden in Lumbini, his birthplace often described as a beautiful park. So symbolically speaking, one could speak of such a place as the birth, or beginning, of a spiritual quest for enlightenment. Chinmoy did not, of course, teach Buddhism, but his spiritual teachings were similar enough to justify a comparison with Buddhist symbolism; and besides, he also taught respect and tolerance of other religions, wanting to promote interfaith harmony and seeing all religions as one; so there shouldn’t be anything discordant about discussing Buddhist ideas in an analysis of the Chinmoy influence on McLaughlin and his music.

The piece begins with McLaughlin playing a high B♭, doubled by Hammer and with Laird playing a G♭ above middle C. McLaughlin and Hammer are mostly descending melodically as Laird plays an E♭, a D♭, an A♭, and a G♭, then resolving to F.

Hammer improvises on the piano in F Mixolydian as McLaughlin plays fast ascending arpeggios in F major and E♭major. Then the two return to a written melody, doubling each other as Laird’s double bass descends by step from E♭ to D♭and C (below middle C); the acoustic guitar and piano melody here is mostly a repeat of G♮, D♭, B♭G-F (3x), then it goes down to F, D♭, and C.

Then the bass goes to D♭, with the guitar and piano rising to a high C. As the guitar and piano continue their doubled melody, the double bass goes up to an E♭, a G♭, and A♭, and a B♭. Then the guitar and piano improvise over a D super Locrian scale.

Then the guitar and piano play another written, doubled melody in C. As they’re playing this, the double bass is going up from the C to a D♭, an E♭, and up to the G♭ above middle C, where the guitar and piano are at the B♭; this is where the melody now matches that of the very beginning of the track as I described above, resolving to F as before.

Now, McLaughlin is soloing in F Phrygian, as Hammer backs him with piano chords, and Laird is playing mostly low Fs as a kind of drone, with the occasional G♭or D♭. This is another showcase of McLaughlin’s shredding skills on the acoustic guitar, demonstrating the truth of what it says in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, in its entry for the Mahavishnu Orchestra: that when it comes to McLaughlin’s playing, “even those players who could match McLaughlin’s speed couldn’t approach his lyricism.” (Warren, Romanowski, page 598)

After this improvisation, there’s a return to the G♮, D♭, B♭, G♮-F (3x) theme, followed by some fast ascending and descending runs on the guitar and piano. Then there’s a repeat of the melody with the rising bass line, going from D♭to E♭, G♭, A♭, and B♭, and from there, we hear more improvising on the guitar and piano, much of which involves McLaughlin playing a fast descending and ascending line of D down to B♭(the tonic), and back to the D, then an E♭and an F (perfect fifth in relation to the tonic), but often we hear him play this line with a G♭(augmented fifth) instead of that final F. Hammer plays variations on these descensions and ascensions alongside McLaughlin.

The track ends with the guitar/piano theme starting in C, with the bass ascending to D♭, E♭, and G♭ above middle C as described above, and finally resolving in F major.

VIII: Hope

This two-minute track ends Side One of the LP. It’s in seven, mostly subdivided 4+3, but just after the first hearing of the 4+3 subdivision, it changes to 3+4 just the one time (that is, for the whole theme, all of which is repeated over and over throughout the two minutes). Because of this switch, the listener may be deceived into thinking he or she is hearing a bar of 6/4 instead.

It’s odd that a track with such dark, ominous music should be called “Hope.” It must be remembered, though, that hope is experienced in a dialectical way, with the lingering fear that that hope will be frustrated or crushed.

Such hope mixed with fear ties in well with the tension between renouncing ego and overindulging in it, with the hope of attaining nirvana as against the frustration of staying trapped in samsara. It’s fitting, thus, that this track would be in the middle of the album, representing the halfway point of McLaughlin’s spiritual journey; he’s made progress in “Thousand Island Park,” and so he has “Hope” for moksha, but he still has a long way to go, where he’ll still be beset with many temptations and setbacks.

The bass line starts on F and goes up to G, A♭, and down to E, then up to A, and then there’s a chromatic ascension of A-B♭-B♮-C, C♯, D♯, and E. Over this ascension is a theme, heard primarily on the violin, of an arpeggiated D♭major chord (with an added sixth on the violin that is sustained ’til the end of the chord progression) in second inversion, heard over the F in the bass. Then there’s B♭ and E♭ over the bass G, and G and D over the bass A♭: these notes are all heard during the “6/4” moment; then there are A♭, D, and G over the low E. After this comes a D♯ major chord, arpeggiated in second inversion, with the A in the bass.

Then, the bass chromatic ascension of A, B♭, B♮, and C is heard, with the arpeggiated D♭ major chord in second inversion. Then there’s C♯ in the bass, over which is heard an arpeggiated E♭ major chord (second inversion). Next, there’s the D♯ in the bass, with an E♮ major chord in second inversion; and finally, the E in the bass, with a G♭ major chord in second inversion.

This whole progression repeats as such throughout the track, though later, when the chromatic ascension is heard in the bass with the D♭ major chord and added sixth, the violin plays a high A♭and an F, slid up to and sustained ’til the end of the progression. You can also hear Hammer’s acoustic and electric piano in the background.

IX: One Word

This ten-minute track, beginning Side Two of the LP, derived its title–as well as one brief guitar line with ascending triplets, a pair of quarter notes and two pairs of eighth notes–from a song written by McLaughlin when he was playing in Tony Williams Lifetime, with Williams (drums), Larry Young (organ), and Jack Bruce (bass and vocals). The song was recorded in 1970, with a lyric.

“One Word” refers to a sense of oneness with everything in the world: “One with the sun, one with the moon, one with the star…”, etc. So this oneness ties in with the general theme of Birds of Fire–the spiritual aspiration to transcend the limitations of the ego to be as one with Brahman.

The Tony Williams Lifetime version of the song, under four minutes long and appearing as a bonus track on the 1970 album Turn It Over, is actually much closer to the final track on Side Two of Birds of Fire, the two-minute “Resolution.” The melody that Bruce sings, along with the chordal backing, is more or less identical with that track, making me wonder why McLaughlin didn’t name it “One Word” instead of “Resolution.”

Are we meant to believe that the ten-minute instrumental represents an aspiration to that oneness, while “Resolution” represents its attainment? That the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “One Word” is merely the aspiration, rather than the attainment, of oneness with Brahman is evident when we consider the frantic passion of the quintet’s playing, especially during the fast intro.

Indeed, while the aspiration may involve a renunciation of the ego, we don’t hear a more obvious expression of overindulgence in the ego than on this ten-minute track. All five members do solos on this one; as McLaughlin, Hammer, and Goodman take turns doing licks in the middle section of the track, they clearly seem to be in competition with each other…which of them is the most virtuosic, inventive, and awe-inspiring in his playing?

Cobham, starting off the track with a long drum roll crescendo on the snare, plays at a particularly frenetic pace when the rest of the band comes in. They start by playing a G♯ and a C♯–that is, the guitar, violin, and bass–setting off Cobham to be wildly drumming at lightning speed. This continues, with more single tones on the guitar (doubled by the violin and bass), which punctuate specific points in that sea of Cobham’s frantic drumming. Then the music softens, and they’re playing in G.

Both McLaughlin and Hammer are matching Cobham’s speed, the former demonstrating his lyricism as well, and the latter playing arpeggios and other ornaments on the Fender Rhodes. After McLaughlin plays a series of fast Gs hammered on from F, with Hammer improvising chords, McLaughlin plays those triplets I mentioned above, those from the Tony Williams Lifetime version: these are an arpeggio of G major (quarter notes), one of D major and one of F major (eighth notes), one of C major (quarter notes), one of D major, of B major, and of A major (eighth notes), then a low open E. All of the arpeggiated chords are in root position. Note how, with the additional eight-note A major arpeggio, this is a new variation on the old Tony Williams Lifetime version, making the whole thing a bar of 4/4, then one in 5/4.

McLaughlin ends that section with an A major chord; then Cobham slows down the tempo to a funky groove, and still in A, Laird begins a long bass solo. He is the only member of the band not doing anything flashy or virtuosic; he’s just keeping the groove going, serving the music and helping the rest of the band build up to the climactic trading of licks to be heard–in this order–by McLaughlin, Hammer (on synth), and Goodman, whose violin adds a wah-wah pedal.

These three musicians’ playing epitomize a notion that can be summed up in two simple, but in-your-face words: fucking WAILING!!! Each player’s turn to play is, at first, four bars of 4/4 (2x), then two bars (2x), then one bar (3x), then half a bar (3x), then all three are wailing at the same time for several bars.

Next comes Cobham’s solo. At first, he just keeps the funky groove going, then he does some fast rolls back and forth on the snare and tom-toms. An interesting lick comes soon after: kicking the bass drum, followed by triplets on the snare, over and over; first, it’s a syncopated 4/4, then it’s a 6/8 and 5/4, a 6/8 and 4/4, another 6/8 and 5/4, then he varies the lick to other irregular rhythms. He climaxes the solo with, largely, drum rolls on the snare and a kicking of two bass drums. He ends the solo with the frantic drumming of the beginning of the track, and the band comes back in, all in A.

The ultimate climax of the track comes with a fiery riff of groups of high notes, in twice-descending A minor pentatonic notes in 7/4, and jumping groups of pentatonic notes in 11/8; the bars of 7/4 and 11/8 alternate. Laird is backing the riff with notes of A, G, G♭, and G♮. McLaughlin ends the track with those guitar triplets I’ve already described, then ends with an A major chord.

X: Sanctuary

Once again, we have a title for the track that seems to be in contradiction with the tone and mood of the music. While a sanctuary is a place of safety, peace, and refuge, the music we hear on this track is dark, gloomy, mournful, and even despairing. Such a contradiction, however, fits in with the recurring theme of Birds of Fire.

There is, on the one hand, the aspiration to attain the peace and spiritual sanctuary of nirvana, of moksha; and yet, with the constant temptation to overindulge the ego, a temptation that’s all too often given in to, there is also the profound sadness, the despair, of a constant frustration of such spiritual aspirations. So “Sanctuary” once again demonstrates the album’s theme of a tension between the wish to renounce the ego and the desire to overindulge it.

The track opens with a soft, low bass note of E. It’s in 9/8 time, sometimes subdivided 5+4, sometimes 3+3+3. The former subdivision is heard with the low E in the bass, and a soft guitar line of G and an F that’s a minor 7th above the G, then a G♯ and the F, then an A♯ with the F, then the G♯ and F, and a G♮and F. In the first five beats of the 5+4, the E is on the first beat, and G, G♯, A♯, and G♮ on the third beat, and F on the fourth beat. In the next four beats of the 5+4, the G, G♯, A♯, G♯, and G♮ happen on the second beat, while the E and F occur on the same beats as before. All of these notes suggest an octatonic scale rising by alternating half-steps (e.g., E to F) and whole steps (e.g., F to G).

As for the 3+3+3 subdivision, it is heard in the lead played on the guitar and doubled on the violin, while the other guitar part described above is now played on the Fender Rhodes. The lead is in F Aeolian (or F natural minor scale), mostly made up of dotted quarter notes, though with some ornaments, ascending and descending in steps.

Then the music gets louder, moving up to C, the lead guitar and violin doing the same 3+3+3 subdivision, but in the Phrygian mode, with mostly dotted quarter notes and some ornaments as before, ascending and descending mostly by steps. The Fender Rhodes is doing a variation on the 5+4 subdivision theme, but with notes of a low C in the bass and with upper notes of C and B♭; then a low A in the bass, and with upper notes of C♯ and B♭, then a low F♯ in the bass, and with upper notes of D♯ and B♭; then back down with the A, C♯ and B♭, then C, C and B♭; then this whole progression is repeated, but with a playing of the last F♯, D♯, and B♭heard twice.

After this, we return to the beginning progression with the E in the bass, but Hammer plays a synth solo, which continues through the change to the progression with the bass notes in C, A, F♯, and A. The track returns twice to the progression and theme with E in the bass (with the C, A, F♯, and A part one more time in between, too), and it ends with the last chord in F major.

XI: Open Country Joy

This track has a ternary form, opening with the feeling of an idyllic setting of being out in the country and enjoying the peacefulness of nature. Then the middle section contrasts that joy with a sense of the stress of living in the hectic, bustling city. Then there’s a return to the idyllic setting of the beginning.

Such a contrast between rural and urban atmospheres ties in again, in a symbolic sense, with the tension recurring throughout the album of nirvana and samsara, of the peace that comes from renouncing the ego (the country joy), and the pain that results from an overindulgence in the ego (the stress of the city). Fittingly, it is during the ‘city’ middle section that the flashier soloing is heard (overindulgence of the ego), while during the country sections, we hear simpler, more modest playing, including triadic chord progressions rather than the more usual harmonic sophistication associated with jazz.

Indeed, the beginning chord progression is in D major, with variations on chords in D major, C major, and G major, McLaughlin embellishing the chords with such ornaments, here and there on his 12-string, as suspension 9ths and 4ths, etc. You can also hear Hammer doing some licks on the Fender Rhodes.

Goodman comes in with a violin melody, ascending by step from the tonic D up to A, then up again by step from there to E above the D an octave higher; then he goes essentially down by step back to the A. The chord progression at this point is D major, C major, B minor, and to A major, then G major, F♯ minor and to E minor, then back to the dominant A major. There is a repeat of this progression, but it resolves in the end on a B major chord.

There’s a brief silence, then we’re brought abruptly into the ‘city’ section, also in B. There’s a flashy, fast flurry of notes, a largely descending pentatonic run played on the guitar (six-string) and violin, with Cobham’s fast drumming in the background. Then McLaughlin, Goodman, and Hammer (on the synth) take turns soloing, each solo interrupted by either the fast pentatonic run just described, or another, similar one. During his second violin solo, Goodman adds the wah-wah pedal. This taking of turns soloing happens twice, then we return to the ‘country.’

Goodman incorporates a bit of country-music-style fiddling during his solo in this final section. The track ends as the first ‘country’ section did, with a B major chord.

XII: Resolution

This two-minute track that ends the album is, as I said above, a brief instrumental version of the beginning and ending parts of that song, “One Word,” by Tony Williams Lifetime. Instead of the melody being sung, as it was by Jack Bruce, it is played by the violin and guitar, doubling each other again, in B♭Dorian/Aeolian/Phrygian with a guitar chordal backing. It’s all in 4/4 time.

The melodic contour is made up of three-note descents by step down to major or minor thirds, then ascending leaps by perfect or augmented fourths, or by perfect fifths, as it is at the end. The contour rises by pitch and dynamics to reach a climax at the end of the track.

The chords McLaughlin plays are an A major triad over a B♭ bass note, then a B major 7th/B♭, then a B♭minor, and E♭major over a B♭bass, and similar such variations. These dissonant chords build tension in the music, making “Resolution” a rather odd choice for a title.

Indeed, we’re not hearing a resolution in harmony, nor does it seem like a resolution of spiritual aspirations. Perhaps this is why the lyric of the original song, with its ideal of oneness with everything, is excluded (McLaughlin could have simply found a singer to do a guest vocal on the album).

Or maybe the whole point of “Resolution” isn’t that it’s a resolution of the spiritual problem of ego, but that it’s about having the sense of resolve to keep on trying to overcome the desires and lusts of the ego.

XIII: Conclusion

Such an interpretation of the final track, of course, ties in with the general theme I’ve emphasized about Birds of Fire. To attain oneness with Brahman, moksha, nirvana, isn’t a state of sentimentality, in which all of one’s pain is magically removed, once and for all time. It’s an ongoing process, a never-ending struggle.

This interpretation can explain how music with such mystical subject matter can also have so much tension and passion in it, as opposed to relaxing New Age music. The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s album truly exemplifies the meaning of what it is to be “a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.”