AprilCadence2013

Jazz Stories John McLaughlin
jm: i was a nervous wreck, that's what it was like. no, i was thrilled, because i'd
been following miles since '57 or '58, and Tony, i met for the first time in '64, in
europe, in miles' band. and i loved Tony, at that point. i was just thrilled to be there
to play with Tony and Khalid Yasin, which was larry Young's (religious) name. and
i'd been following him, because he was like the new hammond organ guy, he was it.
i was thrilled. and then miles coming in and saying "bring your guitar to the studio,"
that was so unexpected for me. and of course i arrived there and nobody even knew
there was a guitar player coming in that day. and they said to miles that there was
no guitar part, so they had to make a photocopy real quick of joe Zawinul's piano
part, which was behind this wonderful little anecdote, because it's joe's chillin, as
you probably know, in a silent Way. and so we ran it down a couple times, and i just
read the piano part, the top part. and miles said "stop that" and looked at me and
said, "so play it on the guitar." i said "so you want the chords and everything?" he
said "everything." i said, "Well, it's a piano part, you know, it's not a guitar part."
"is that a fact?" he said! i mean i was already sweating blood. so he's waiting for
me to play it, and it was gonna take a minute, and he wasn't happy about that. so
he's looking at me, i mean the whole studio was stopped, everyone was in there,
wondering what was gonna happen, and he turns around and says "play it like
you don't know how to play the guitar." hahaha! he was like a zen master. and
of course i heard the guys say, like, "oh that's a new one, i've never heard that
one before." Because he was well-known for his cryptic remarks and his cryptic
instructions to musicians. so anyway i said "i gotta do something," then i threw all
the chords out, and i threw rhythm out, and i went off and played in e, everybody
knows e, and off i went. miles had the light out, and i didn't really know what was
going on, i was just on cloud nine and sweating and everything. We finished the
take and miles loved it. he just loved it. and he loved it so much that he put it on the
opening of side 1, and the closing of side 1. These were vinyl days. and that was my
baptism of fire with miles in the studio.
67 | CadenCe Magazine | april May June 2013