Liberation is a word that’s been on a lot of people’s minds over the last two years, and jazz fusion pioneer John McLaughlin has turned that idea into the topic of his latest solo album. The 4th Dimension leader discusses Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s legendary debut album, and Liberation Time.

Words: Sid Smith

Sticking your necks out: John McLaughlin with his famous guitar, November 6, 1974.

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“I t was a disaster,” says John McLaughlin. “It was brutal.” He is referring to the year 2020, while talking about the background to the making of Liberation Time (right), his latest addition to a solo discography that first began back in 1969. While the pandemic’s lockdowns touched and affected everyone differently, this man has been gigging more or less non-stop since the late 1950s, and when he says he found the enforced confinement brutal you can hear the pain and anguish in his voice.

McLaughlin initially made the best of it. Living in a relatively rural environment in France meant he could go for walks, and he got plenty of exercise playing his beloved table tennis, not to mention keeping up with his guitar practice. However, the frustration of not making music with his band, The 4th Dimension, and other friends eventually became overwhelming. “It got to the point where I said, ‘I need liberating’. I know it sounds trite, but it was a dire need on my part.”

The resulting album was not what he was expecting. What emerged was a sequence of tunes that have the imprimatur of the fiery, fleet-fingered tone for which McLaughlin is so renowned, but the setting is more akin to the straight-ahead jazz on which he cut his teeth. “When music comes out of me, the ideas and tunes and pieces, they kind of dictate a direction, not the other way round.”