John McLaughlin, the godfather of fusion guitar, was such a pivotal figure of the genre in the late ’60s and early ’70s, it was a little unbelievable when his more recent output went fairly unnoticed. On the other hand, his newer stuff sounded like treading water compared to the frontier-expanding music he was making back in the day as a solo artist, with Miles Davis and with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
To the One, released on April 20, 2010, was a continuation of the small-group electric jazz-rock that McLaughlin first introduced with The Heart of Things. That 1997 record had everything going for it on the surface but, for some reason I can’t put my finger on, fell flat. The 4th Dimension, his then-newly minted fusion group, carried over no members from The Heart of Things sessions – yet the feel was similar.
This time, however, the songs seemed to have more drive and focus. John McLaughlin backed up To the One‘s stated indebtedness to the music of John Coltrane with a set of fusion originals that at their cores mimic Trane’s modalities. That’s really nothing new for McLaughlin, but he was more successful at it in an electric setting than he’d been in a while.
Moreover, what a great band he assembled. Not only the keyboardist Gary Husband, electric bassist Etienne Mbappé and drummer Mark Mondesir are good individually, they play super together.
Together, they pull off signature unison runs and counter rhythms and knotty interplay, but the 4th Dimension does so with more touch passes and less with the 90mph fastballs. There’s even real jazz underpinnings in selections like “Special Beings” and “Recovery.”
In this more subtle way, John McLaughlin accomplished more than he had in some time. To the One showed that there was still a lot of artistic life left in this fusion icon.
