Formed by John McLaughlin in 1971, the Mahavishnu Orchestra pioneered the fusion of jazz elements into rock music while still undeniably retaining the power and muscle of a full on rock band.

With McLaughlin as the ever-present, the line-up went through various phases and these two concerts from Montreux showcase the band at distinctively different times of their career, with the seventies show featuring later stars Jean-Luc Ponty and Michael Walden and the eighties concert featuring saxophone maestro Bill Evans. Visual footage only exists of two tracks from the 1974 show (although this is still over 73 minutes of footage) but the other tracks exist as audio masters and they have been added as bonus material. Excellent footage and sound on this two DVD set make it a must watch.

Disc one is a complete show with four tracks and a Medley of 7 songs, with video and disc two has a show with two live videos from a 1974 show and then audio only for the rest of the set. The Video and Audio are outstanding plus they are in 5.1.

The 1984 show is a lot more polished effort, some slightly more mundane fusion. Though actually this somewhat underrated incarnation of the band certainly also covered quite a lot of musical ground. From muscular funk to delicate ballads like the beautiful Nostalgia. The highlight being McLaughlin's moving tribute to another musical giant Joe Zawinul Jozy. The talent of the band is amazing, Bill Evans on some versatile sax, Mitchell Forman, a very creative keyboard player. Danny Gottlieb grooving hard and subtle, and the star of the show: the mighty bassman Jonas Hellborg, a great artist and technician. John is of course playing some great solos on this generally inspired performance from the whole band. It must be said that the 1984 disc is not a Mahavishnu Orchestra concert. It is the group called Mahavishnu, which was started by John McLaughlin, but it bares little resemblance to the Mahavishnu Orchestra of the 70s that features drummer Danny Gottlieb from the Pat Metheny Group. The mood is different than the Mahavishnu. Orchestra, but it's still pure McLaughlin. A great show, as long as you realize it is Mahavishnu, not the Mahavishnu Orchestra. It's still a McLaughlin concert that you ought want to see.

The Disc two, the 1974 set is actually the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but again it's not the original line-up. It was the final line-up featuring Jean-Luc Ponty on violin, Gayle Moran (Chick Corea's wife at the time) on keyboards, Ralphe Armstrong on bass and Nerada Michael Walden on drums. There are only 2 songs that actually have visual footage of the band. They nevertheless do an incredible over-21-minute version of Wings of Karma, followed by a full 28-minute version of Hymn to Him (both songs from the Mahavishnu Orchestra album ‘Apocalypse’). Together, that is nearly 50 minutes of visual footage of a fabulous performance by a great band during an important time in McLaughlin's career. The following 4 tunes would have been much better with visual coverage, but this is still a great disc to have, even if you never go past the visual portion of the disc.

To sum it up, these are two great concerts featuring the genius McLaughlin at two entirely different phases in his illustrious career that are worth owning.

Rating: *****

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira