Customer Reviews
Scraps and nuggets - By: N. Dickens, 28 Aug 2007 
Scraps & nuggets from a doomed feast. The paucity of salvageable material (no less than four versions of one track for example) backs up the now legendary accounts of the 'difficulties' John Mclaughlin & Tony Williams had with Jaco Pastorius... but inspite of it all the music veritably roars at times; each member an absolute master of his instrument. Aaaah what might have been.
Important archive release from this short lived supergroup - By: Dr. D. B. Sillars, 27 Jul 2007 
Full marks to Columbia for releasing this important archive recording of this very short lived jazz-rock supergroup. A combination of live & studio material make up this collection, athough at just under 40 minutes of playing time, this shows how brief this band actually existed!
The dream team of guitarist John McLaughlin, bassist Jaco Pastorius & drummer Tony Williams didn't disappoint. Though Jaco's playing & temperament at the time is shroudedin legend, on the evidence here he was on top form. The band really gel & the soloing & group interplay is among the best that jazz-rock had to offer at the time. The first half of this release is live material culled from their only, brief performance at the 1979 Havana Jazz Festival. The highlights are the fiery McLaughlin piece "Dark Prince" & the beautiful "Continuum", penned by Pastorius. The studio takes are obviously more polished, finishing with a storming "Para Oriente" which is worth the price of the disc alone!
The sound quality on these recordings are surprisingly good, wonderfully put together with the remastering overseen by McLaughlin himself. That it has taken this long, almost 30 years, for these recordings to get a legitimate release is almost criminal.
The Cream of jazzrock - By: Bodhi Heeren, 03 Jul 2007 This release may have its detractors due to the very short playingtime, not much more than 35 mins of effective music. But what we get is absolutely fabulous, with all three supermusiciansin topform. The liner notes hints at Jaco Pastorius beginning to have some psychological problems, but sure isn't audiblein his playing.
One could have feared an unmusical clash of ego's, butin fact the respect between this three giants seems so great that it's a lot more like a super-fusion version of Cream, with all three instruments & all three musicians having equal weightin the furious jamming.
We get their entire set from Havana, for the first time ever, starting after a fine drumintro with what's actually the highlight of the whole release, a monstrous version of "The Dark Prince" with a very inspired McLaughlin-solo. Followed by a beautiful "Continuum" with John adding some fine chordal colours under Pastorius' beautiful soloing. The precedings ending on a bit of a bum note though, with a rather disjointed jam, only to be recognized as "Are You The One?", when McLaughlin plays the theme at the very end. A version far from the grandeur of the original on "Electric Guitarist" with Tony, John & Jack Bruce.
So far it's been a very good year for Jaco Pastorius fans, with this gem & with the wonderful DVD with Weater Report "Live At Montreux".
The whole project has been supervised & produced by John McLaughlin & as one would suspect the sound his absolutely top-class.
Another fine Legacy-release.
