.
.
photo by Jean Thévenoux /Wikimedia/CC By-SA 2.0
John McLaughlin performing at Saveurs Jazz Festival, Segré, France. 2016
.
.
Birds of Fire at Woods—Brown Amphitheater
……………………………..(concert at American U. Wash. DC 1973)
We tripped through the parking lot and fell into the Woods—
Brown Amphitheater, then rested a bit as musicians tuned up.
When John McLaughlin’s first eerie notes of “Birds of Fire”
came through, we were taken by surprise. I’d thought
we were going to India, instead it was a caravanserai
to hear the scream of the butterfly.
The mythic eastern notes of his chilling guitar went
up and down our spines. And when the violin took flight
we were given wings where once our shoulders
elbows and arms had been.
The concentration on McLaughlin’s face was mesmerizing;
his rocking and nodding and rapid riffs uplifted our minds,
for we were bleary eyed, tired of winter, and we needed
something new to get us through a disparate season
of ennui and compromise.
Mahavishnu Orchestra took us to a Blakean world of dreams
…………..where exuberance is beauty
…………………………where eternity is within the hour.
I would see John M. again—a year later at Constitution Hall.
…………..I took a picture of his intense face above
…………………………double neck guitar, eyes wide, fixed on
fingers connected to instrument,
…………..shutter speed—1/125th of a second,
…………………………the moment, transcendent.
.
.
___
.
.
DH Jenkins worked as an associate professor of English/Speech for the Univ. of Maryland in Japan and Korea for many years. His jazz play, Ti Jean, about Jack Kerouac, has been staged in Tucson, AZ and in St. Joseph, MO. Thirteen of his poems are set to music in the film Call From a Distant Shore, a collaboration with musician/artist Bill Scholer, June 2020.
.
.
.
.
Listen to the 1973 recording of the Mahavishnu Orchestra (John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman, Rick Laird) play “Birds of Fire”
.
.
.
