When I was around 12 years old, my brother and I went to a concert featuring two jazz giants, pianist Oscar Peterson and guitarist Joe Pass. The concert program mentioned that Pass was a regular winner of a DownBeat magazine reader’s poll, most often sharing the “top jazz guitarist” spot with Mahavishnu John McLaughlin.
Intrigued by McLaughlin’s apparently Indo-Celtic name, the next time I was in a record store I checked out his albums and asked the shop owner to let me hear the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album, The Inner Mounting Flame.
The album cover in itself was striking: four band members are standing or seated on chairs, but McLaughlin is seated on the grass in the lotus position with a Hindu deity by his side. The fact that Jerry Goodman has taken his trainers off looks like some secret code intended solely for the illuminati.
This was in the days when a record store had a row of turntables behind the counter and a row of headphones hanging on the wall so that you could listen before buying. To this day I can recall the boxy, compressed sound of those budget headphones, but they failed to diminish what was quite simply the most astonishing music I had ever heard, the sostenuto opening chords of “Meeting of the Spirits” clashing and resolving like waves upon the shore, but with an intensity verging on violence.
This was music that I had always suspected – or hoped – must be out there somewhere but had not manifested itself to me until this point. Even before the first track ended, I had marched across to the counter, handed over my £5, and took the record home.
Between 1969 and 1971, John McLaughlin had been recording in New York with Tony Williams and Miles Davis, but The Inner Mounting Flame launched the Mahavishnu Orchestra on the world, achieving rapid commercial success in the United States and Europe and introducing a broad swathe of rock fans to music that the press liked to describe as “jazz/rock” or “fusion,” but which, with its exotic and complex chords and 7/8 and 12/4 time signatures, had little to do with either jazz or rock such as they existed at that time.
McLaughlin created his own musical universe, with one concertgoer notoriously reporting leaving the concert hall feeling that he had been “rearranged on the molecular level.”
I subsequently followed McLaughlin’s career closely over the years, through his acoustic ventures with Indian musicians in Shakti, a hugely popular guitar trio with Paco de Lucia and Al Di Meola, and the numerous ensembles that he has led since then always featuring musicians of a caliber that McLaughlin was now able to attract – right up to his current group, John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension, an ensemble that has been together since 2007.
After I recently noticed McLaughlin wearing an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak in live footage from the 1990s along with various other interesting timepieces, I somewhat cheekily asked him for an interview to discuss his watches rather than his music or his guitars, to which he kindly agreed. Not surprisingly we ended up discussing all three.
Interviewing John McLaughlin
McLaughlin is an affable interviewee whose natural curiosity is evident and who enjoys swapping stories in an easygoing patrician manner and mid-Atlantic, mid-Mediterranean accent. If you didn’t know he was a 1960s London contemporary of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards, you could be forgiven for thinking he might be a former British ambassador to Buenos Aires or Cairo (he slips with ease between languages and dialects depending on who he is talking to, and I recently heard him conduct a podcast interview with American drummer Vinnie Colaiuta entirely in a Bronx accent so fluent Robert de Niro would have been proud).
“A lot of watches – and a lot of guitars – have passed through my hands over the years!” he enthused.
We started with the customary wrist check, McLaughlin showing me his black-dial Audemars Piguet Royal Oak over Zoom, which he appreciates both for daily wear and for playing concerts because of its steel bracelet and very slim case, telling me, “It’s the skinny one, Colin!”
“My first watch . . . ? It must be the one given to me by my dad after I hadn’t seen him for many years as my parents split up when I was quite young. Must have been my twentieth birthday. It ran for a few years and then stopped, but I didn’t have the money to get it fixed so I went watchless for many years, which didn’t bother me. It was probably only when I moved to the U.S. and started earning decent money that I indulged myself!”
McLaughlin spent most of the 1960s in London, working variously as a session musician, van driver, and record shop salesman to make ends meet while playing in various rhythm and blues outfits in the clubs.
But a tape recording of his playing found its way to Miles Davis’ former drummer Tony Williams and then to Davis himself, with McLaughlin very soon thereafter finding himself in New York, playing on the seminal recording sessions of In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, and Tribute to Jack Johnson, through which Davis singlehandedly altered the direction of jazz and contemporary music as a whole.
I asked McLaughlin whether he remembers the first nice watch he bought himself.
“Around that time, I bought two vintage Elgin watches from 1928 from a jeweler in New York for $1,500, one in white gold and one in yellow gold. I went back a year later and he said, ‘Hey John, do you still have those Elgin watches? I’ll give you double what you paid for them . . .’ But I kept them, and in fact my wife now has the yellow gold one, and I gave the white gold one to my son for his twenty-first birthday.”
For the purposes of the interview, I had sent McLaughlin some photos from various websites dating back to 1971, and we had set about trying to identify the watch and the year, sometimes with clues from the guitar he was playing at the time.
“After the Elgins I bought a Rolex in a fit of madness, a gold one,” McLaughlin said, which has been identified by fellow Quill-and-Padder Nick Gould as a GMT on a President bracelet. “But I didn’t like it, it was too ostentatious, so I got rid of it.
I can’t really wear gold jewelry. The guitar in that photo above is a Gibson ES-345 with a scalloped fingerboard, a beautiful guitar, which I still have.”
McLaughlin has often used custom-made guitars on which the space between each fret has been scalloped out to facilitate deeper bending of notes, inspired by the Indian sitar.
“I also had a Rolex Submariner at one point but that was too big and heavy. My eldest son got that one. I understand it must be worth something now!”
Is John McLaughlin a collector?
I asked McLaughlin whether he considered himself a collector of either guitars or watches.
“No, and in fact, I don’t like guitar collectors. I like watch collectors, but musical instruments are like people: they need to be looked after and they need to be played or they get ‘wobbly,’ they go permanently out of tune. When people buy fine musical instruments and lock them away in the hope that they will go up in value, they actually deteriorate. They should be in the hands of a musician, especially as many musicians struggle to own a decent instrument.
“I have about ten guitars, including two very old and tiny classical guitars that are unplayable, but I must have given away many more. Guitar companies often give me guitars, but if I’m not playing them, I pass them on to someone who will.”
In the guitar world, there is one particular “grail” model that attracts the same degree of fevered longing as a Rolex “single red” Sea Dweller or Paul Newman Daytona: the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst, of which some 1,800 were made. These were used by the likes of Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Peter Green (of the original Fleetwood Mac), and Duane Allman and are appreciated for their iconic, piercing sound (listen to Fleetwood Mac’s “Albatross” or Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” for examples).
At one point in the early 1980s McLaughlin owned a 1958 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst, which he recognized among the photos I had sent him after I had tracked it down on a Les Paul guitar forum.
McLaughlin must have been looking for a warmer sound because he soon traded the Les Paul for three Gibson “Johnny Smith” model jazz guitars through a dealer in Paris. Two of these he still owns (“the blonde and the redhead”), the third (“the brunette”) having been given to a South African guitarist he had known in his London club days who he knew was in need of a decent instrument.
“Some time after that I also got given a beautiful Breitling as a birthday present on a blue leather strap,” McLaughlin recalled.
“I wore it for a few years and then gave it to my drummer at the time, Dennis Chambers, who really loved it. But Dennis hits the drums hard, and once when he was playing a gig at the Tokyo Blue Note in the 1990s he decided that wearing it while playing the drums probably wasn’t going to do the movement any good, so he took it off and hung it on the cymbal stand. But he forgot to put it back on when the band went backstage for a break, and by the time he remembered it and went back to get it was gone. So that was the end of that one.”
Still in the 1990s, John also received one of his favorite watches as a gift from his wife – a 1950s gold LeCoultre, which remains one of his favorites to this day. “But I don’t wear it very much for concerts because it’s on a leather strap and my wrist gets sweaty, which eventually destroys the strap.”
“Another favorite, which I got around 1985, is my Cartier Tank Reverso [Basculante], probably a 1970s model,” McLaughlin continued, “because it’s slim and light, but it suffers from the same problem. That one stopped working a few years ago so I took it to Cartier for repair.”
Here, the guitarist leaned in conspiratorially as if to share a confidence. “You know, I don’t think they repair it, I think they just replace the whole mechanism, it’s modular and they just replace it. Anyway, it’s been running like new ever since!”
“About five or six years ago I was asked by drummer Cindy Blackman to play on a couple of tracks on her album, Give the Drummer Some. Cindy is an old friend from way back, she’s married to Carlos Santana. When she asked me what my fee would be I said don’t be silly, you’re a friend, I’ll do it for you! Anyway, next time she and Carlos were in Monaco, they came round and as a thank you for doing the album she gave me this Hublot, the new one. Now that one I like for playing: it’s quite heavy but it’s on a rubber strap, which is impervious to sweat.”
I asked McLaughlin about one of the photos I had sent him, a black-and-white shot of him sitting with the musicians with whom he recorded his 1974 Apocalypse album wearing a typical 1960s watch on a Bund strap and holding an extraordinary double-neck guitar with tree-of-life inlays running the full length of the fingerboards made especially for him by a luthier called Rex Bogue.
“I’m afraid I have no idea what that watch is, but I can tell you what happened to that guitar unfortunately,” he answered. “We were in the band room after a show and the guitar was laid flat on a table. There must have been some kind of tremor – not an earthquake, exactly, but a tremor – because the guitar just fell off the table and fell flat on its face on the floor. The bridges were pushed into the body, which had a big split; it was beyond repair. It was insured but it was a unique piece, irreplaceable.
“Now I was on tour with Jeff Beck at the time, must have been around 1975, he was playing Gibson Les Pauls and he lent me a Les Paul to finish the tour. So when we finished the tour I went out and bought him a 1968 white Fender Stratocaster; it wasn’t that expensive at the time, but as everyone knows he’s been playing white Strats ever since – isn’t that sweet?”
John McLaughlin and Switzerland
McLaughlin has been a regular performer at the Montreux Jazz Festival over the years. The lineup of sponsors usually includes a Swiss watch manufacturer (most recently it has been Audemars Piguet). One year it was Ebel, who presented him with two beautiful watches, both given away. Another sponsor from whom he received several watches was Parmigiani Fleurier, including a custom model for the Montreux Jazz Festival, which McLaughlin eventually passed on to his doctor in Munich “who fixed my back – and saved my career – at one point in the 1990s. But I do have another beautiful Parmigiani on a white strap, which my wife gave me.”
Music fans know that the Montreux Jazz Festival was the brainchild of Claude Nobs, who was the lucky recipient of a very special guitar. When McLaughlin founded his Indian-influenced acoustic group Shakti in the mid-1970s, he had a unique guitar made featuring the above-mentioned scalloped fingerboard and a set of sympathetic cross strings laid across the front of the guitar body, which resonated with the principal strings and allowed him to sound a “drone” chord while playing the guitar.
The first, prototype version was replaced by two production versions by luthier Abe Wechter and ended up in the National Museum Zurich alongside Miles Davis’ red trumpet and other wonders – all thanks to Claude Nobs.
The two Wechter guitars met a sadder fate as McLaughlin lent them to a guitarist who was into Indian music for several years. When they were eventually returned, they had become unplayable due to a combination of abuse and neglect, so McLaughlin gave those away.
Fortunately, an Italian luthier called Mirko Borghino was subsequently able to recreate the Wechter guitar from photographs, so John now has a “Shakti” guitar when he needs it.
Returning to the topic of watches, John McLaughlin has the honor of having had not one, but two, signed, limited edition watches made for him by Swiss manufacturers, both with his signature on the back of the case.
The first dates back to 1998 when McLaughlin was patron of the London Jazz Festival, which was sponsored by Oris. After a concert, Oris surprised him with three watches (from a limited production run of 900), a Flieger-style, black-dial Big Crown watch with his signature on the back and an ETA 2836-2 movement under the hood. This limited-edition item was sold in a boxed set that included a CD of McLaughlin’s 1997 album The Heart of Things.
Given that the other watches in the Oris Jazz series included homages to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner, this was a fitting tribute to McLaughlin’s 30-year career. One of these was given to McLaughlin’s father-in-law, who wore it for many years. When he passed away, it was serviced and handed down to one of his sons.
Unique John McLaughlin watch by Artya for Only Watch 2021
The second “limited edition” – well, unique piece in all actuality – John McLaughlin watch is happening right now, a very exciting prospect for collectors of both fine guitars and fine watches.
Independent Swiss manufacturer ArtyA was founded and is owned by Yvan and Dominique Arpa. Dominique is an artist, while Yvan’s resume features stints at Baume & Mercier, Hublot, Romain Jerome, and Jacob & Co, and designing the Gear S3 for Samsung.
In collaboration with San Francisco-based artist Marq Spusta and Geneva-based gem setting and engraving workshop Blandenier, one of McLaughlin’s album covers has been reproduced both on one of his electric guitars made by Paul Reed Smith (McLaughlin’s preferred weapon of choice at present, as it is for Carlos Santana, John Mayer, and many others) and on the dial of a unique watch: ArtyA’s exotic Son of Sound jump-hour watch model in the shape of a guitar headstock signed by McLaughlin on the back.
Both John’s guitar and the watch are set to be auctioned together at the famed charity auction Only Watch 2021 on November 6, 2021 with the proceeds going fully to Duchenne muscular dystrophy research.
“I’m a bit reluctant to let this guitar go because it’s absolutely stunning. But it’s for a good cause. I might have to buy the watch just to get to keep the guitar!” McLaughlin joked to me. “The Only Watch auction is on November 6, Colin, maybe I’ll see you there! Don’t forget your checkbook!”
Miles beyond
My last question for McLaughlin was a musical one.
In the period spanning 1969 through 1971, he had moved to New York and recorded with Miles Davis on the albums In a Silent Way, Bitches’ Brew, and Tribute to Jack Johnson as well as recording his own albums My Goals Beyond and Devotion.
The first Mahavishnu album, The Inner Mounting Flame, was recorded in August 1971, just five months after the recording of Tribute to Jack Johnson with Miles Davis and My Goals Beyond in March ’71, on which McLaughlin was already playing with future Mahavishnu Orchestra members Billy Cobham and Jerry Goodman.
However, musically, rhythmically, and harmonically speaking there is a massive leap forward – a missing link – and there is little indication in any of the preceding recordings of what is to come in The Inner Mounting Flame, even with some of the same musicians.
For example, Cobham’s playing on Tribute to Jack Johnson is positively laid back compared to what he does on The Inner Mounting Flame.
My question to McLaughlin was: what happened during that period? And where did those extraordinary chords come from, which I had never heard before in any other form of music and which he continued using for many years and still crop up occasionally on new compositions today?
“What happened was that I had a recording contract for two albums with a producer called Alan Douglas, who hacked the recording of the first album to pieces and basically ran off with all the royalties . . . For the second album I said that if he even came near the studio I would stop recording! The Mahavishnu project had been building in me even before I went to America, but I decided that Douglas certainly wasn’t going to get his hands on it.
“If you listen to ‘Right Off’ (on Tribute to Jack Johnson), you can hear chords in there that subsequently became the ‘Dance of Maya’ (on The Inner Mounting Flame). I was working on it already with Billy Cobham, just the two of us. What you’re hearing is chords like Abmaj7b5 resolving to A7; it’s those changes that create the tension.”
“The tune came from me, actually – Miles was supposed to be composing music for the film, but at that moment he wasn’t even in the studio, he was in the cabin. While we were waiting for him I just started playing it as a rhythm ‘n’ blues shuffle.
We hit a groove, Billy and me, and Miles then ran into the studio with his trumpet and proceeded to play the most outstanding solo I’d ever heard from him, he’s just outrageous on that track!
“As for ‘those chords,’ they must have just come from my twisted mind, Colin!”
Many thanks to John McLaughlin for agreeing to this interview and to Ina McLaughlin for providing new photographs of John with some of his watches and guitars.
John McLaughlin’s latest album Liberation Time is available here and wherever you stream music. Bid on the unique Artya creations with proceeds going to charity at OnlyWatch.com.
Quick Facts Artya Son of Sound Guitar Is That So? John McLaughlin for Only Watch 2021
Case: 37 x 49 x 15 mm, black DLC-coated stainless steel and 18-karat gold in the shape of a guitar with John McLaughlin’s signature engraved on the case back; functional tuning knob crowns
Dial: hand-painted in the colors of John McLaughlin’s album Is That So? by Blandenier according to artwork by Marq Spusta; 6 gold “strings” and “f holes”
Movement: automatic Artya Woodstock caliber (Concepto base); 50-hour power reserve
Functions: jump hours, minutes, seconds; date, chronograph
Limitation: one unique piece
Remark: this lot comes with the hand-painted Paul Reed Smith guitar as well as the opportunity to meet John McLaughlin and visit the Artya and Blandenier workshops
Auction estimate: CHF 35,000-50,000
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Hum… Is it just me or he’s wearing the AP and the Cartier upside down?
in fact,the guitar in Stairway to Heaven is a Fender Telecaster . Mc Laughlin is God´s Hands .both of them.
Ah you may be right, Oscar, I suppose I’m thinking of all the live footage where he plays it on the Les Paul (Song Remains the Same etc.) I’ve certainly seen old black and white footage of Page playing a Fender.
Of course, on TSRTS he was playing an EDS-1275 double neck….. as did John Mclaughlin before the Rex Bogue… It’s all a long time ago!
Well, that’s just an extraordinary interview. Thank you. I don’t know anything about watches, but I have a deep love for guitarists and their instruments, and you got some absolutely fascinating details from John regarding both his guitars and his music. He seemed to be very open with you. For example, I had never heard the story about what happened with the Rex Bogue guitar. Very sad.
The fact that he only has around 10 guitars and gives away his surplus instruments is so refreshing. I have new respect for the man
I have to admit that I’m also fascinated at the amazingly creative period when he was working with Miles, recording those solo albums, and somehow coming up with the Mahavishnu Orchestra — all in completely different styles. Incredible. And you even threw in some cool musical details. You know your stuff! Oh, I’m impressed that you found the Mahavishnu album at such a young age. I was a relatively ancient high-schooler when it came out. Life changing, to be sure
Anyway, I’m rambling, but thanks again for the great article. For the sake of accuracy, I just wanted to point out that it’s Peter Green, not Greene, and it was Duane Allman playing the ‘59 LP. Gregg was his keyboard-playing brother.
Oh, and one last thing: His wife is a really good photographer! What a talented family.
The Rex Bogue guitar lived (lives?) on! It was sold by Christies in 1994:
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-3734797
Yes I discovered that just last month, Richard – from the sale notice it seems that they didn’t mention it had been an insurance write-off, which is a bit naughty.
Or maybe, Colin, it was a bit naughty of the insurance company to write it off. Anyway, someone got a bargain!
Thanks David, and yes, John seems to actively enjoy being interviewed and likes to tell anecdotes, which made it very easy for me. And Ina’s photos are a charming addition.
Certainly my school friends thought me rather odd buying Joe Pass and Mahavishnu Orchestra records rather than Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd like them (I simply borrowed theirs).
The Editor will be along shortly to correct my spelling/name mistakes! I think I added the “e” because I was thinking of his guitar, which is now known as the “Greenie”.
Yes, the editor just corrected those two errors!
It was wonderful to read a John McLaughlin interview with such a different take. It reminds me of Cigar Aficionado’s interview of the late drummer Tony Williams. I also have one small correction. The album Apocalypse was recorded in 1974. Congratulations on offering a different side of McLaughlin!
Thank you for reading! I corrected the year, thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks Walter, glad you enjoyed it. I’ll certainly check out that cigar article.
We probably have to blame John Mayer for this – he was the first major guitarist to openly come out as a serious watch nerd! He now single-handedly moves the vintage Rolex market by merely approving a certain model.
Hi. I would like to know what happened to john’s EDS-1275 doubleneck Gibson that he played on stage with the first Mahavishnu Orchestra. I saw them live in Princeton NJ. Would love to know the story of what happened to that guitar.
Good question, Jim. I believe that Gibson were supposed to make him a custom one but they messed him around failed to deliver, which is he started using other guitars from that point on.
Irresistible! Thank you so much for this kind and good service.your services is better than better.
Thanks, Jazz, glad you enjoyed it.
As ever, our aim is to please!
I never hear anything about his 78 Gibson Byrdland shown on the cover of Downbeat magazine in June of 78. It had a scalloped neck and no Bigsby. I actually think I have that guitar. I acquired it from the estate of an Irish musician but have never been able to confirm it was JMs. Gibson said they don’t keep records back that far but the serial number says it was built in December of 77. Who else would’ve had a guitar like that but John.
That sounds plausible, Ross, as the album Electric Guitarist was recorded in ‘78 – is that the guitar in the sleeve photos with the white tape on the f-holes?
You could email a photo to John via his agent (see johnmclaughlin.com), I am sure he would be pleased to know that it’s being used by someone.
Great interview! Thanks for the insight into his music and watches.
Thanks Russ, glad you enjoyed it!
Well done for this interview! A legendary guitarist, talking guitars and watches… it cannot get better than this, can it?
Glad you enjoyed it!
How about guitars, watches and wine?
John is in a world of his own. I saw him many times in the 70s and l was at Cornell. His work with Santana in love supreme is like dancing among the stars.
Excellent piece of journalism! Informative and entertaining. And personal. I also recall my first encounter with the Mahavishnu Orchestra transforming into life-time adventure with music of John McLaughlin.
Thanks, Jacek, I am glad you enjoyed it.