''The Inner Mounting Flame'' is the debut studio album by American jazz-rock fusion band

Mahavishnu Orchestra The Mahavishnu Orchestra were a jazz fusion band formed in New York City in 1971, led by English guitarist John McLaughlin. The group underwent several line-up changes throughout its history across its two periods of activity, from 1971 to 1976 ...

, recorded in August 1971 and released later that year by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the A ...

. After their formation, the group performed several debut gigs before they entered the studio to record their first album featuring all original material written by guitarist John McLaughlin.

Release and reception

''The Inner Mounting Flame'' was released in 1971. Reviewing the album for ''

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growt ...

'' in 1998,

Bill Milkowski Bill Milkowski (born September 26, 1954) is an American jazz critic, journalist, and biographer. Since the 1970s he has written thousands of articles for magazines and album liner notes.. He has written for ''DownBeat'', ''JazzTimes'', ''Jazziz'' ...

said:

One is struck by the grandiose reach of the quintet that dared to call itself an orchestra. Pieces like "Meeting of the Spirits" and the fragile, acoustic "A Lotus on Irish Streams" are like classically-inspired suites in miniature. But it was numbers like "Noonward Race", "Vital Transformation" and especially "Awakening", fueled by Cobham’s smoldering intensity on the
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and McLaughlin’s raging, distortion-soaked guitar lines, that really grabbed rock crowds. More ethereal pieces like "The Dance of Maya", with its odd
time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...
s and
arpeggio A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
s, and the haunting "You Know, You Know", a drum feature for Cobham, helped to create a kind of mystique about the Mahavishnu Orchestra that was wholly unprecedented for its time.

In a retrospective review for

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

, Richard S. Ginell wrote that ''The Inner Mounting Flame'' "is the album that made John McLaughlin a semi-household name, a furious, high-energy, yet rigorously conceived meeting of virtuosos that, for all intents and purposes, defined the fusion of jazz and rock a year after

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

' ''

Bitches Brew ''Bitches Brew'' is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded from August 19 to 21, 1969, at Columbia's Studio B in New York City and released on March 30, 1970 by Columbia Records. It marke ...

'' breakthrough".

Later releases

remaster Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

ed version of the album, on CD, was released in 1998 by

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainmen ...

. It features a facsimile of the LP front cover, a new set of

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are des ...

Bob Belden James Robert Belden (October 31, 1956 – May 20, 2015) was an American saxophonist, arranger, composer, bandleader, and producer. As a composer he may be best known for his Grammy Award winning orchestral jazz recording, ''Black Dahlia'' (2001) ...

, as well as many photographs of the band. ''The Inner Mounting Flame'' was included in 2011 as part of '' The Complete Columbia Albums Collection'' boxset, along with the other albums by the first line-up of the band, including ''

The Lost Trident Sessions ''The Lost Trident Sessions'' is a studio album by jazz fusion group the Mahavishnu Orchestra, released on 21 September 1999 through Sony Music Entertainment. It was originally recorded in June 1973 at Trident Studios but was not released until 2 ...

''. This version includes a version of "The Noonward Race" recorded live at the Mar y Sol Pop Festival 3 April 1972. That version was previously available on the compilation album '' Mar Y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival'', but the version included in the boxset is two minutes longer.

Track listing

All tracks composed by John McLaughlin.

Personnel

Mahavishnu Orchestra

* John McLaughlin – guitar *

Rick Laird Richard Quentin Laird (February 5, 1941 – July 4, 2021) was an Irish musician, photographer, teacher, and author best known as the bassist and a founding member of the jazz fusion band Mahavishnu Orchestra, with which he performed from 1971 to ...

– bass *

Billy Cobham William Emanuel Cobham Jr. (born May 16, 1944) is a Panamanian–American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was inducted into the ''Mode ...

– drums, percussion *

Jan Hammer Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as his film scores f ...

– keyboards, organ *

Jerry Goodman Jerry Goodman (born March 16, 1949) is an American violinist who played electric violin with The Flock and the jazz fusion ensemble Mahavishnu Orchestra. Career Jerry Goodman was born on March 16, 1949, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were ...

– violin

Additional personnel

*Don Puluse – engineer

Charts

; Album

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(United States)

References

External links

Aspiration – by Sri Chinmoy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inner Mounting Flame 1971 debut albums Mahavishnu Orchestra albums Columbia Records albums