John McLaughlin - Live at the Royal Festival Hall

2011 reissue features new artwork and a new remastering.

Featuring John McLaughlin, Kai Eckhardt and Trilok Gurtu.

In 1988 the celebrated guitarist formed his current trio with Trilok Gurtu on percussion and Kai Eckhardt on bass. Extended touring all over Europe and the US soon welded McLaughlin, Eckhard and Gurtu into a real band unit. In the course of a six week tour touching eleven European countries the John McLaughlin Trio performed at the London Royal Festival Hall on November 27, 1989. The concert ended in an ecstatic standing ovation. The album John McLaughlin Trio live at the Royal Festival Hall documents this memorable event.

John McLaughlin (born 1942 in Yorkshire, England) has been a central figure in fusion music since the sixties. Again and again he has set a standard for the music's evolution. Even before he moved to the US in 1969 to join Tony Williams' "Lifetime" and play with Miles Daves ("In A Silent Way", "Bitches Brew", "Live Eil", "Jack Johnson", and in 1985 "You're Under Arrest") and Wayne Shorter, McLaughlin played an important role on the British jazz and jazzrock scene.

As a leader of the Mahavishnu Orchestra (since 1971, with varying personnel), the most influential jazz fusion band of the seventies, and later with the Indo-jazz group Shakti (76-78), McLaughlin attained the status of a living legend. Meanwhile, he continued working with musicians like Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles as well as the London Symphony Orchestra. In the late seventies and eighties there were performances with partners like Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, David Sanborn, Jaco Pastorius, fellow-guitarists Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucia, with his Mahavishnu Orchestra, and once again with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.