09/09/2026
John McLaughlin was sitting in the band room with Miles Davis after a concert at Lennie’s on the Turnpike, just outside Boston, in late 1970.
By his own account, he had played badly that night and was apologising for it. Miles listened, then said something McLaughlin had not expected:
“It’s time you formed your own band.”
McLaughlin was stunned. “That was the last thing I expected to hear from Miles,” he later recalled. “But he was the most honest person I ever met.” If Miles thought he was ready to lead a band, McLaughlin felt he had to take that seriously.
Within a year, he had formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
The original line-up brought together Billy Cobham on drums, Jerry Goodman on violin, Rick Laird on bass and Jan Hammer on keyboards. Their first album, The Inner Mounting Flame, was recorded in August 1971, and the group’s extraordinary rise soon took them from clubs to major festivals and arenas.
Mahavishnu Orchestra became one of the defining bands of jazz fusion. According to McLaughlin, it began with a bad night, an apology and a few unexpected words from Miles Davis.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
[📸 John McLauglin by Frank C. Müller, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]
