by Mahavishnu Orchestra
1999, Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

the sound: The cover art on Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “The Lost Trident Sessions” paints a fitting picture for the sound of the music on the disc. Jagged lightning bolts cut through a brilliant reddish-purple sky to strike the surface of dark mountain peaks. In the foreground, John McLaughlin plays a double-necked guitar while the rest of his five-piece band jams around him. The album is crammed with electrified instrumental tunes that produce a celestial lightshow in the firmament of the listener’s mind. Each of the six jazz fusion tracks has an epic quality that sends the imagination racing over mountainous landscapes of sound. At the forefront is McLaughlin’s baffling guitar work, showcased prominently on a pair of the guitarist’s complex, original songs. His playing is mirrored interchangeably by the galvanized violin work of Jerry Goodman and the electric currents of Jan Hammer’s keyboards. Goodman and hyper-skilled bassist Rick Laird also contributed compositions to the album. But, sometimes it is worth listening to the entire album while honing in exclusively on the drums—Billy Cobham will blow your mind. His insanely rapid and furiously charged drumming makes even the greatest rock drummers, like John Bonham and Keith Moon, sound like amateurs. Beginning with the mounting grandeur of McLaughlin’s “Dream,” the album shifts between gentle, cerebral tunes that engulf the listener like desert winds and savage, visceral symphonies that seem to pour from the heavens like monsoons.

the background: The tracks on “The Lost Trident Sessions” were recorded during a brief session in London in summer 1973. Why the album was not released until 1999, decades after Mahavishnu’s original lineup disbanded, is somewhat of a mystery, since it stands up to any of the group’s seven other studio albums. Listening to “Trident” alone can make any fan understand why many critics consider Mahavishnu to be the greatest jazz fusion act of all time. McLaughlin and Cobham met while recording music with Miles Davis in the late 1960s, and the two went on to form a pioneering band that would combine progressive rock elements of bands like Yes and King Crimson with the band members’ extensive jazz training. Mahavishnu’s two most popular albums, “The Inner Mounting Flame” and “Birds of Fire,” outreach the efforts of other fusion pioneers like Weather Report in their intensity and creativity. The band fell apart in 1976 but reunited for a stint in the 1980s. After more than a quarter of a century stowed away in the attic, “Trident” is a gem that deserves a place in any rock or jazz fan’s collection.

the significance: Although most music stores would probably file “The Lost Trident Sessions” in the jazz section, even listeners with aversions to jazz will find the music irresistibly thrilling. In fact, “Trident” demonstrates both the expansive scope of jazz and the senselessness of trying to categorize every piece of music that exists. By the mid-1950s, rock ’n’ roll had already smothered any shot jazz had at becoming a popular art form. But, the fusion movement pioneered by McLaughlin and other innovative musicians proved that the two genres could coexist, and even feed off of one another to mutually grow and evolve. Emerging in 1999, “Trident” transcends the decades to remind us of the power of music that is created in the spirit of progress.