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 lost gem Aug 30, 2009
thankfully McLaughlin had a change of heart and allowed these recordings to surface. 3 stars of instrumental jazz rock, 2 of them snuffed out way too soon.
 Interesting, but Mediocre at Best Jul 07, 2009
The Trio of Doom is one of those legendary groups that have finally been exposed to the light of day, with mixed results. With John McLaughlin on guitar, Jaco Pastorius on bass, and Tony Williams on bass, the Trio of Doom certainly had the chops. But they never really did anything; in fact, they were hardly ever a group at all, just a one-time jam session put together to play one concert, the Havana Jam of 1979, where they were limited to a 25-minute set.
But wait, the legend gets stranger. At the concert, the microphones for the drum kit were not all connected, so the original live recording was flawed. The group reassembled in a New York studio to re-record their set, with some of the mix (primarily Williams's cymbals) being spliced back into the live tapes so that Columbia could include a little of the band's sound on the Havana Jam album.
McLaughlin, the only surviving member of the Trio of Doom (Pastorius died in 1987, Williams in 1997), long resisted releasing any recording of the group, but finally relented. What we have here is pretty much everything the band ever recorded: the complete Havana Jam performance (with some audio wizardry to restore the sound of the cymbals) plus the music the group recorded in the studio.
Yes, that means that we hear the same music repeated. We even get to hear some studio outtakes. Is the end result musically satisfying? Not really, at least to these ears. Williams is a wonder, but McLaughlin and Pastorius were too much into the `70s fusion mode of spraying out a lot of notes to really produce anything musically memorable. As a historical document (hey, check out those white pants!), however, Trio of Doom is of some worth.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 bbbbaaaaaaaad May 01, 2009
They should have kept this out of circulation. The live set is disjointed, lost in form. Blech......
 Listen Carefully Jan 21, 2009
The music, and musicianship, displayed on this album was instrumental in changing jazz/rock fusion. That doesn't mean everyone will like it (most people don't listen to fusion), but it clearly set a standard for many other talented jazz & rock musicians.
The liner notes clarify a lot of the back story, and shed light on why this is the only set of recordings from this group. A lot of work was done to bring quality of sound to the original recordings, and its sonic & fidelity qualities are good, but not great.
Everytime the CD comes up in my juke box, I replay it several times. There's a depth to the music that one doesn't hear the first time.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
The Trio Was Doomed Jan 09, 2009
I am a huge fan of all three of these musicians, and have been fortunate to hear both McLaughlin and Pastorius live in transcendent performances. This trio had the potential to be truly mind-blowing. Having never heard of the session, I bought the disc on the strength of my love for each of these great musicians. What a disappointment!
The sound quality is abysmal, the chemistry is absent, there's no "there" there. Another reviewer called it pointless noodling, and that pretty well sums it up. I have even heard that McLaughlin himself has "disowned" the recording. I don't know if that's true, but I do know this was a complete waste of my money and, like I said, I'm a fan. I will never listen to this again :-(
Instead of buying this turd, you WILL be much happier with any of the following: the Miles Davis Cellar Door Sessions (with killer McLaughlin); Mahavishnu Orchestra's Inner Mounting Flame or Birds of Fire; Jaco's Heavy 'N Jazz or his eponymous 1976 record; or Tony Williams' 1969 recording with McLaughlin called Emergency.
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