The extended soloing Cream and Mahavishnu featured that some posters above have decried comes from John Coltrane’s "sheets of sound" style of lengthy soloing that explored the tune being played to the point where you could hardly find any connection to the original melody at all. Yet, many times, the playing did manage to come back to the song itself, but there have been occasions where, particularly under the guise of "free jazz," it sounded like there was more self indulgent noise than actual music being played. Ymmv.
Studio recordings of the Mahavishnu Orchestra were obviously structured with shorter pieces and no long solos. The Inner Mounting Flame, Birds Of Fire and Lost Trident Sessions are the 3 played by the original group, with Apocalypse and Visions of the Emerald Beyond by the second one, featuring Jean-Luc Ponty in place of Jerry Goodman. The original ensemble also released a live album, Between Nothingness and Eternity, with a second disc of it being released by Columbia as part of a 2011 Mahavishnu Complete Columbia Albums Collection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavishnu_Orchestra:_The_Complete_Columbia_Albums_Collection If you've not heard all of these, you should, although Apocalypse is by far the weakest of the bunch.
Advice for similar sounding music would lead to hearing the post MO recorded output of Messrs Goodman, Cobham and Hammer as well as to The Dregs (once known as the Dixie Dregs), whom Goodman played with as well. There are many musicians out there with the skills the band had back in the day, but few have the emotion and fire-Al Dimeola being a prime example.
Studio recordings of the Mahavishnu Orchestra were obviously structured with shorter pieces and no long solos. The Inner Mounting Flame, Birds Of Fire and Lost Trident Sessions are the 3 played by the original group, with Apocalypse and Visions of the Emerald Beyond by the second one, featuring Jean-Luc Ponty in place of Jerry Goodman. The original ensemble also released a live album, Between Nothingness and Eternity, with a second disc of it being released by Columbia as part of a 2011 Mahavishnu Complete Columbia Albums Collection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavishnu_Orchestra:_The_Complete_Columbia_Albums_Collection If you've not heard all of these, you should, although Apocalypse is by far the weakest of the bunch.
Advice for similar sounding music would lead to hearing the post MO recorded output of Messrs Goodman, Cobham and Hammer as well as to The Dregs (once known as the Dixie Dregs), whom Goodman played with as well. There are many musicians out there with the skills the band had back in the day, but few have the emotion and fire-Al Dimeola being a prime example.