Album 950
Mahvishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
Year: 1973
Jazzy guitar driven fusion at it's absolute best. It even has a Miles Davis composition, so yeah, how can you lose! There's so much that can be said for this band, this is truly bringing jazz into a new age, and the fact that it didn't spawn a whole new lasting movement is such a massive shame. I had a bit of difficulty chosing between this and The Inner Mounting Flame. But I've always found that Birds of Fire was more driven and featured a much tighter band. This has massive crossover appeal so it's hard to see how anyone could not enjoy this. This is definitely one to listen to when you want to hear the shape of jazz to come in a more perfect world.
3 Choice Tracks: Birds of Fire, Celestial Terrestrial Commuters, One Word
Additional Notes: You can stream the whole album here:
http://www.last.fm/music/Mahavishnu+.../Birds+of+Fire