Passionate new recording reflects the ongoing profound impact of John Coltranes A Love Supreme on McLaughlins musical and spiritual quest
(New York, NY) Fiery yet disarmingly open-hearted, the new album from John McLaughlin and the Fourth Dimension, To The One, bravely takes on the artistic and spiritual challenges first offered by Coltranes jazz masterpiece A Love Supreme, while making extensive use of the pioneering musical and technical vocabulary that McLaughlin has honed since the beginning of his storied career.

Available via Mediastarz in Europe and Abstract Logix in USA on April 20, 2010, To The One is the result of a burst of inspiration that struck the legendary English guitarist and composer in summer of 2009. This music started to come to me, McLaughlin explains, without any call from my part. The sound and feel of this new music took me back to 1965, to when I first heard A Love Supreme. I was 23 years old at that time, and struggling with questions of existence that we all confront sooner or later. Some of us discard them or don't bother to delve deeper, but that's not my nature. I was asking big questions: What is the meaning of life? What is this word god? What is this spirit? It was then that Coltrane came along and single-handedly brought this dimension of spirituality into jazz…it was a pivotal experience to me. It was so encouraging to me in both my musical and spiritual quests. To The One, as an album, is about those two aspects of my life music and spirituality crystallized by this recording of Coltranes, and how A Love Supreme coincided with my search for meaning in life.

With his new album To The One (Abstract Logix/Mediastarz), iconic guitarist and composer and 2010 Grammy Winner John McLaughlin looks backwards and forwards simultaneously. The six original songs are hauntingly evocative – with roiling rhythmic swells, modal expanses, and telepathic group interaction echoing the profound influence of John Cotrane’s 1965 spiritual jazz masterpiece A Love Supreme.

Mostly written in July and August of 2009, the music composing To The One was set down in the studio in November and December, with very few overdubs, by McLaughlin’s current performing outfit, the Fourth Dimension: Gary Husband (keyboards, drums), Etienne M’Bappe (electric bass), and Mark Mondesir (drums). Compositional devices clearly inspired by Coltrane are fused with elements of McLaughlin’s own multi-faceted approach, all delivered with a group empathy and shared vision that harkens back to Coltrane’s fearless mid-‘60s quartet of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison. The effect of Jones’ kaleidoscopic approach to rhythm and drumming is especially felt, brilliantly recast and explored via McLaughlin’s gift for complex metrical structures.

McLaughlin’s restless, enquiring spirit is captured with disarming immediacy on To The One, vividly enhanced by both the skill and soulfulness of the Fourth Dimension. From the surging opener “Discovery” to the gently propulsive title track which closes the compact, forty-minute program, McLaughlin’s own playing is at its very peak: emotional and probing, exploding into flourishes of rapid-fire sixteenth notes one moment, candid and unguardedly vulnerable the next. No slavish imitation or sentimental tribute, To The One is a fiery yet open-hearted work, taking on the artistic and spiritual challenges first offered by Coltrane’s jazz masterpiece while making extensive use of the pioneering musical and technical vocabulary that McLaughlin has honed since the beginning of his storied career.