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User
Reviews 2
Approval 78%
Soundoffs 4
Album Ratings 4
Last Active 01-01-70 12:00 am
Joined 01-01-70
Review Comments 882
| The Big 4 Of Fusion Ranked
Inspired by the Big 7 Prog list. This is not including Miles Davis, who invented the shit and still did it better than anyone else. | | 4 |  | Weather Report
Black Market
Just like every group here, the musicians were out of this world, particularly Pastorius and the incredible Joe Zawinul. The problem is that most of their music simply wasn't that listenable. From their too-ambient beginnings, overly commercial and synth-sounding classic period and sub par-later recordings, they had very few bona fide classics. Black Market is unquestionably their best Jaco album and Sweetnighter is unquestionably their best non-Jaco album. The rest leave much to be desired. However, on the rare occasions they wanted to rock out, did they ever! | | 3 |  | Herbie Hancock
Headhunters
Like early Weather Report, Herbie also leaned heavily on ambiance and minimalism for much of his classic fusion period. However, he pulls it off much more convincingly. Headhunters is obviously a barn burner, but Mwandishi and Crossings are subtle masterpieces and Sextant sounds much less cheesy than it should, given the synth overload. Even the lesser known Thrust and Man-Child are rather good. | | 2 |  | Return to Forever
Light as a Feather
Return to Forever is simply incredible. Aside from their lackluster final album, everything they ever put out is worth owning. The first two albums have heavy Latin and Bossa Nova influences and Light as a Feather, in particular, is absolutely stunning in its musical blissfulness. The later albums take on more standard fusion extremely well. I have always found Romantic Warrior and Seventh Galaxy to be just a tad overrated, but still excellent. Where Have I Known You Before and No Mystery are phenomenal, featuring bass powerhouse Stanley Clarke, guitar hero Al Di Meola, drummer extraordinaire Lenny White and perhaps the greatest electric pianist in history, Mr. Chick Corea. A marvelous group. | | 1 |  | Mahavishnu Orchestra
Visions of the Emerald Beyond
Maybe not much of a surprise, but for the same reason that Weather Report gets 4th, Mahavishnu gets 1st: listenability. Comparing these 4 groups from a musicianship standpoint is useless, as they all featured the best musicians in the world. Mahavishnu is simply the most interesting, powerful and repeatedly listenable music here. The first two albums, featuring the classic Hammer, Cobham, Goodman, Laird lineup are undisputed classics. However, the next two records, with the Moran, Walden, Ponty, Armstrong lineup are incredible in their own right. Apocalypse was a bit heavy on the orchestration, but with excellent results, nonetheless. And Visions from the Emerald Beyond was an absolute masterpiece, and arguably the most coherent and listenable album they ever made. While perhaps not as musically intense as the debut, Visions kept the musicianship up to usual Mahavishnu standard and the songwriting was magical. Ponty's violin work on the opening Eternity's Breath tracks is still some of the greatest ever laid to tape. Hail Mahavishnu! | |
SgtPepper
04.02.13 | Nice list. m/ | WeepingBanana
04.03.13 | never listened to RTF but chick corea rules and i saw him live and it ruled too | Chrisjon89
04.03.13 | i only have two MO albums, 3 or 4 from Weather Report, two RTF and only a handful of Hancock fusion albums. but based on those, I pretty much agree with this ranking.
I can't imagine how people would've reacted to Sextant in 1972 or whenever it was. | JamieTwort
04.03.13 | Good list. I agree with the ranking. | mandan
04.03.13 | I'm way behind with RTF and WR, but the other 2 are amazing. | Jethro42
05.29.13 | ''Ponty's violin work on the opening Eternity's Breath tracks is still some of the greatest ever laid to tape. Hail Mahavishnu!''
This. | Snowdog808
01.11.15 | I love all four of these artists so much! |
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