JOHN MCLAUGHLIN — Where Fortune Smiles (review)

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN — Where Fortune Smiles album cover Album · 1971 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
snobb
The truth about this rare album is that it was released originally as John Surman's work, but the later reissue was credited to John McLaughlin for pure marketing purposes.

Anyway, this music is quite different from anything released by McLaughlin before or after. This album features an excellent team of musicians, (rhythm section of Dave Holland and Stu Martin) and they sound great. Surman's reeds lead the band, but they are sometimes pulled down by Karl Berger's busy vibraphone work. McLaughlin is the composer of most of the album's songs and the only other composer is Surman.

The music itself is free-form knotty complex compositions with only a few fusion licks. This isn't an excellent record, but it makes for an interesting example of an almost unknown side to McLaughlin's music.
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