J o h n

M c L a u g h l i n

by

Otacílio Melgaço

(from Belo Horizonte City, Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Video - 800/600 pixels, small font
Navigator - Larger font




As
If
From
A
Dream,
I
Wake
Up
L a u g h l i n (g)

"Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"
(W.B.)

Hearing McLaughlin sound's, his immaculate music reminds me passionatly 

of writer João Guimarães Rosa 

(also from Minas Gerais – state that gave birth to Melgaço) 

and his spell "I’m not afraid anymore of climbing 

the peaks where the clean and thin air wheights out, 

nor to leave the sterght out of my muscles...

 the empytiness dragged me to the center 

of the whirl of the great force, that how flows,

 fierce, inside and out of me... 

I leave that inevitable dances, 

around me, the dance of the swards in all moments."
The timeless Mahavishnu J.M.:
"...for the last (...) years I have systematically revised all my spiritual influences. They remain a constant inspiration to me. They are primarly:
Karen Armstrong,
Carlos Castaneda,
Chuang Tzu,
Thomas Merton,
D.T. Suzuki,
D.E. Harding,
Aldous Huxley,
The Chan poetry,
Ramana Maharshi,
Sri Ramakrishna,
Brahmanada,
Vivekananda,
Fritjof Capra
and
Alan Watts."


This Site is dedicated to
immaterial, 'animic' John;
the stream of his divine panacea.


His Souly Silence

Silence is the sister of the divine. Meister Eckhart said that there is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence. Silence is a great friend of the soul; it unveils the riches of solitude. It is very difficult to reach that quality of inner silence. You must make a space for it so that it may begin to work for you. In a certain sense, you do not need the whole armoury and vocabulary of therapies, psychologies, or spiritual programmes. If you have a trust in and an expectation of your own solitude, everything that you need to know will be revealed to you. These are some wonderful lines from the French poet, Rene Char: 'Intensity is silent, its image is not. I love everything that dazzles me and then accentuates the darkness within me.' Here is an image of silence as the force that discloses hidden depth. One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people. In modern life there is an immense rush to express. Sometimes the quality of what is expressed is superficial and immensely repetitive. A greater tolerance of silence is desirable, that fecund silence which is the source of our most resonant language. The depth and substance of a friendship mirrors itself in the quality and shelter of the silence between two people. As you begin to befriend your inner silence, one of the first things you will notice is the superficial chatter on the surface level of your mind. Once you recognize this, the silence deepens. a distinction begins to emerge between the images that you have of your self and your own deeper nature. Sometimes much of the conflict in our spirituality has nothing to do with our deeper nature but rather with the false surface constructs we build. We then get caught in working out a grammar and geometry of how these surface images and positions relate to each other; meanwhile our deeper nature remains unattended.
As if I'd slept a thousand years underwater I wake into a new season. I am the blue lotus rising. I am the cup of dreams and memory opening - I, the thousand-petaled flower. At dawn the sun rises naked and new as a babe; I open myself and am entered by light. This is the joy, the slow awakening into fire as one by one the petals open, as the fingers that held tight the secret unfurl. I let go of the past and release the fragrance of flowers. I open and light descends, fills me and passes through, each thin blue petal reflected perfectly in clear water. I am that lotus filled with light reflected in the world. I float content within myself, one flower with a thousand petals, one life lived a thousand years without haste, one universe sparking a thousand stars, one god alive in a thousand people. If you stood on a summer's morning on the bank under a brilliant sky, you would see the thousand petals and say that together they make the lotus. But if you lived in its heart, invisible from without, you might see how the ecstasy at its fragrant core gives rise to its thousand petals. What is beautiful is always that which is itself in essence, a certainty of being. I marvel at myself and the things of earth. I float among the days in peace, content. Not part of the world, the world is all the parts of me. I open toward light and lift myself to the gods on the perfume of prayer. I ask for nothing beyond myself. I own everything I need. I am content in the company of god, a prayer that contains its own answer. I am the lotus. As if from a dream, I wake up
l a u g h l i n (g).


Next Page: Click the Globe


O.M. is a brazilian Composer, Singer, multiple Instrumentist, Arranger, Lyricist and symbolistic Poet

See the official Melgaço's Site
B u r i t i - d o s - G e r a i s
and
The Otacílio's Virtual Brotherhood by William Frias
Kiss You Mindly

From Al DiMeola, Pat Metheny, and Mike Stern to John Scofield, Bill Connors, and Scott Henderson, John McLaughlin has been a strong influence on many of the top jazz/fusion guitarists of the last 30 years. McLaughlin's classic recordings of the 1970s have long been regarded as essential listening for anyone with even a casual interest in fusion, and if the British improviser had decided to retire in 1980, he still would have gone down in history as one of jazz-rock's most influential axemen. Born in Yorkshire, England on January 4, 1942, the guitarist is well known for his eclectic taste in music. McLaughlin was a child when he first fell in love with jazz and the blues, and he was just 11 years old when he began studying and playing the guitar. The 1960s found him playing jazz, rock, and blues in his native England, where he worked with Alexis Korner and Ginger Baker, among others, before moving to New York at the end of the decade. McLaughlin had a busy year in 1969 he recorded his debut album, Extrapolation, and started working with two seminal voices in early fusion: Tony Williams (who employed McLaughlin and organist Larry Young in his trailblazing group Lifetime) and Miles Davis. Never afraid to forge ahead, Davis had done a lot to popularize cool jazz and modal post-bop in the past and he continued to break new ground when he introduced fusion on his 1969 sessions In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, both of which feature McLaughlin's playing. The guitarist was also featured on 1970's A Tribute To Jack Johnson, another Davis gem of the time. Like bebop in the 1940s and modal jazz in the early 1960s, fusion was controversial. Jazz purists felt that rock and funk rhythms had no place in jazz, but thankfully, McLaughlin disagreed and let his musical instincts guide him. After participating in Davis' and Williams' groundbreaking fusion combos, McLaughlin founded an influential group of his own in 1971: The Mahavishnu Orchestra, which boasted such greats as drummer Billy Cobham and keyboardist Jan Hammer. By the time Mahavishnu broke up in 1975, it had recorded several classic albums for Columbia (including Birds of Fire, Between Nothingness and Eternity, and Visions of the Emerald Beyond) and gone down in history as one of the 1970's most influential fusion outfits. In 1975, McLaughlin did the unexpected by founding Shakti, an acoustic group that employed traditional Indian musicians (including tabla player Zakir Hussain and violinist L. Shankar, Ravi Shankar's nephew) and underscored the guitarist's interest in India's music, culture, and religion. Shakti reminded listeners that McLaughlin was as appealing on the acoustic guitar as he was on its electric counterpart, and proved that he wasn't about to confine himself to playing any one style of music exclusively. Indeed, McLaughlin was heard in a variety of musical settings in the 1980's everything from a brief Mahavishnu Orchestra reunion in 1984 to an acoustic guitar summit with Al DiMeola and Paco de Lucia in 1982 to a classical album with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988. McLaughlin was no less eclectic in the 1990s, when his Verve projects ranged from 1993's acoustic Time Remembered: John McLaughlin Plays Bill Evans (a tribute to the late pianist) to sessions featuring organist Joey DeFrancesco (1993's Tokyo Live and 1994's John Coltrane-minded After the Rain) to an acoustic McLaughlin/DiMeola/de Lucia reunion in 1996. It was in 1997 that McLaughlin reunited with Zakir Hussain and a reconfigured version of Shakti for several U.K. concerts that were documented on Verve's two-CD set Remember Shakti. "I'm a guitar player that's what I am primarily, that's what I'll always be," McLaughlin has been quoted as saying. "(And) I'm an eternal learner. I don't want to stop learning because I feel that no matter what I've done, I'm really just beginning again. I don't think I'll ever stop learning."


O Haver

Restam meu amor, devoção e entrega à numinosa musicalidade mclaughliniana. Resta toda a admiração que John, prevalente, possui por minha cidade natal - Belo Horizonte - e que seja aqui retribuída pessoal e espiritualmente. Resta, acima de tudo, essa capacidade de ternura, essa intimidade perfeita com o silêncio. Resta essa voz íntima pedindo perdão por tudo - Perdoai-os! porque eles não têm culpa de ter nascido... Resta esse antigo respeito pela noite, esse falar baixo, essa mão que tateia antes de ter, esse medo de ferir tocando, essa forte mão de homem cheia de mansidão para com tudo quanto existe. Resta essa imobilidade, essa economia de gestos, essa inércia cada vez maior diante do Infinito, essa gagueira infantil de quem quer exprimir o inexprimível, essa irredutível recusa à poesia não vivida. Resta essa comunhão com os sons, esse sentimento da matéria em repouso, essa angústia da simultaneidade do tempo, essa lenta decomposição poética em busca de uma só vida, uma só morte. Resta esse coração queimando como um círio numa catedral em ruínas, essa tristeza diante do cotidiano; ou essa súbita alegria ao ouvir passos na noite que se perdem sem história. Resta essa vontade de chorar diante da beleza, essa cólera em face da injustiça e o mal-entendido, essa imensa piedade de si mesmo, essa imensa piedade de si mesmo e de sua força inútil. Resta esse sentimento de infância subitamente desentranhado de pequenos absurdos, essa capacidade de rir à toa, esse ridículo desejo de ser útil e essa coragem para comprometer-se sem necessidade. Resta essa distração, essa disponibilidade, essa vagueza de quem sabe que tudo já foi como será no vir-a-ser e ao mesmo tempo essa vontade de servir, essa contemporaneidade com o amanhã dos que não tiveram ontem nem hoje. Resta essa faculdade incoercível de sonhar, de transfigurar a realidade, dentro dessa incapacidade, de aceitá-la tal como é, e essa visão ampla dos acontecimentos, e essa impressionante e desnecessária presciência, e essa memória anterior de mundos inexistentes, e esse heroísmo estático, e essa pequenina luz indecifrável a que às vezes os poetas dão o nome de esperança. Resta esse desejo de sentir-se igual a todos, de refletir-se em olhares sem curiosidade e sem memória, resta essa pobreza intrínseca, essa vaidade de não querer ser príncipe senão do seu reino. Resta esse diálogo cotidiano com a morte, essa curiosidade pelo momento a vir, quando, apressada ela virá me entreabrir a porta como uma velha amante mas recuará em véus ao ver-me junto à bem-amada... Resta esse constante esforço para caminhar dentro do labirinto, esse eterno levantar-se depois de cada queda, essa busca de equilíbrio no fio da navalha, essa terrível coragem diante do grande medo, e esse medo infantil de ter pequenas coragens...

A J.M.

Uma Mulher Chamada Guitarra

Um dia, casualmente, eu disse a um amigo que a guitarra, ou violão, era "a música em forma de mulher". A frase o encantou e ele a andou espalhando como se ela constituísse o que os franceses chamam um mot d'esprit. Pesa-me ponderar que ela não quer ser nada disso; é, melhor, a pura verdade dos fatos. 0 violão é não só a música (com todas as suas possibilidades orquestrais latentes) em forma de mulher, como, de todos os instrumentos musicais que se inspiram na forma feminina — viola, violino, bandolim, violoncelo, contrabaixo — o único que representa a mulher ideal: nem grande, nem pequena; de pescoço alongado, ombros redondos e suaves, cintura fina e ancas plenas; cultivada, mas sem jactância; relutante em exibir-se, a não ser pela mão daquele a quem ama; atenta e obediente ao seu amado, mas sem perda de caráter e dignidade; e, na intimidade, terna, sábia e apaixonada. Há mulheres-violino, mulheres-violoncelo e até mulheres-contrabaixo. Mas como recusam-se a estabelecer aquela íntima relação que o violão oferece; como negam-se a se deixar cantar, preferindo tornar-se objeto de solos ou partes orquestrais; como respondem mal ao contato dos dedos para se deixar vibrar, em benefício de agentes excitantes como arcos e palhetas, serão sempre preteridas, no final, pelas mulheres-violão, que um homem pode, sempre que quer, ter carinhosamente em seus braços e com ela passar horas de maravilhoso isolamento, sem necessidade, seja de tê-la em posições pouco cristãs, como acontece com os violoncelos, seja de estar obrigatoriamente de pé diante delas, como se dá com os contrabaixos. Mesmo uma mulher-bandolim (vale dizer: um bandolim), se não encontrar um Jacob pela frente, está roubada. Sua voz é por demais estrídula para que se a suporte além de meia hora. E é nisso que a guitarra, ou violão (vale dizer: a mulher-violão), leva todas as vantagens. Nas mãos de um Segovia, de um Barrios, de um Sanz de la Mazza, de um Bonfá, de um Baden Powell, pode brilhar tão bem em sociedade quanto um violino nas mãos de um Oistrakh ou um violoncelo nas mãos de um Casals. Enquanto que aqueles instrumentos dificilmente poderão atingir a pungência ou a bossa peculiares que um violão pode ter, quer tocado canhestramente por um Jayme Ovalle ou um Manuel Bandeira, quer "passado na cara" por um João Gilberto ou mesmo o crioulo Zé-com-Fome, da Favela do Esqueleto. Divino, delicioso instrumento que se casa tão bem com o amor e tudo o que, nos instantes mais belos da natureza, induz ao maravilhoso abandono! E não é à toa que um dos seus mais antigos ascendentes se chama viola d'amore, como a prenunciar o doce fenômeno de tantos corações diariamente feridos pelo melodioso acento de suas cordas... Até na maneira de ser tocado — contra o peito — lembra a mulher que se aninha nos braços do seu amado e, sem dizer-lhe nada, parece suplicar com beijos e carinhos que ele a tome toda, faça-a vibrar no mais fundo de si mesma, e a ame acima de tudo, pois do contrário ela não poderá ser nunca totalmente sua. Ponha-se num céu alto uma Lua tranqüila. Pede ela um contrabaixo? Nunca! Um violoncelo? Talvez, mas só se por trás dele houvesse um Casals. Um bandolim? Nem por sombra! Um bandolim, com seus tremolos, lhe perturbaria o luminoso êxtase. E o que pede então (direis) uma Lua tranqüila num céu alto? E eu vos responderei; um violão. Pois dentre os instrumentos musicais criados pela mão do homem, só o violão é capaz de ouvir e de entender a Lua.

(Vinícius de Moraes)