Yes, the original quintet -- Jerry, Jan, Billy. The members of our little fusion band in HS/college used to follow the MO around the Northeast, catching shows any time we could. As great as the band’s studio recordings were, they did not compare to the live performances, in which the group expanded the original compositions into their "true" extended versions. The live version of "Awakening," e.g., evolved into an extended suite in which each soloist developed a theme (the themes changed week by week) into a 5-10-minute mini-composition. "The Dance of Maya", live, was a much more complex piece, adding segments devoted to specific solos and duets. Month by month, you could watch each piece evolve on stage.
The closest you’ll get to hearing this in the band’s commercial recordings are the two "Between Nothingness and Eternity" live albums, which span a two-night gig at NYC's Central Park. But I was at those shows & can vouch that, even in that case, the perforrmances were abbreviated to accommodate a 42-minute LP format. Over the years, I’ve collected 40 or 50 bootlegs of the band that give a better idea of how thrilling it was to be in the audience, but sound quality varies from "OK" to "horrible." And I still believe in supporting artists, so boots are never my first choice.
So I still highly recommend the BNE albums to anybody who wants to experience what it was like to hear the original MO. Not even McLaughlin’s recent "Mahavishnu" tour with Jimmy Herring comes close.
There’s a reason why Zappa refused to let the MO open for his band. The story goes that the only time he did, fans walked out before Frank could come on stage -- and FZ was never a guy who tolerated being upstaged. They were that good.
Sorry for the digression. I know there are other fusion fans on Audiogon, so I hope this message was interesting to at least a few.
