Tony Williams Lifetime
The Village Gate
New York, NY
1969-12-19

Source-cd-r trade of a long ago recording on unknown equipment> EAC disc extraction> TLH Wav to flac formatting> TLH torrent creation> DIME

Tony Williams - Drums, voice (A Famous Blue
John Mclaughlin - Electric Guitar
Larry Young - Hammond B3 Organ

1-To Whom It May Concern - Us 6:15
2-Emergency! 11:13
3-Vuelta Abajo 11:49
4-A Famous Blues 6:24
5-Something Special 4:56

This has definitely been up here on DIME before, and I'm responsible for one of those times in 2017. That seems to be the most recent time this has run. I'd gotten my copy in trade, but the dimebot archive shows several earlier shares, some of which purported to have improved sound over others. My trade copy certainly could tie in to one of the very early runs here. The samples will reveal how this one sounds, so if anyone has something better, please share your version and I'll ask the mods to pull this one.
Lifetime had the reputation of being one of the "loudest bands ever", so it's a wonder that anything listenable emerged from this era. Not sure of the actual source of this. Scanning the info at etree, the general consensus is that it's a B+ listen and an A+ performance. The source info has one collector saying this is SB or FM sourced (there is what may be a cut off DJ intro before track 1), but I'm not claiming that. It's being brought back now because I've been reading a 2023 book about John McLaughlin by Matt Phillips that's called John McLaughlin: From Miles and Mahavishnu to the Fourth Dimension. The early parts, of course deal with John's time in Lifetime, and that brought me back to listen to some of the live stuff I have from them.
Lifetime represented an absolutely pivotal moment in music when "fusion" or "jazz-rock" really took on the amplification and energy associated with bands like Cream or the Experience. No offense to the likes of The Fourth Way, Gary Burton's groups, the Al Kooper BST, or even Bitches Brew era Miles, but Lifetime was from another place that led far more directly towards groups like Mahavishnu and the Bill Connors era RTF.
There isn't much out there from this era of Lifetime. A recent Jack Bruce box set called Smiles and Grins includes some terrific quality video from the Beat Club during his time with Lifetime. There's also a Newcastle UK show that goody worked on which is still running here since 2010. Various other live things like a very rough sounding series from Ungano's in NYC, and studio outtakes of multiple takes of just a couple of Lifetime tracks have been here too. I'm not sure if anyone ever had worked on this particular share, or if the pitch/speed is even in the correct ballpark.
John McLaughlin is sometimes playing in the lower register of his electric guitar in this show, so it may occasionally sound like there's a bass there. Despite that, I'm pretty confident that Jack Bruce isn't here, and that this is the original version of Lifetime as a Trio. 3 songs here would be on the second Lifetime album, Turn It Over, and two are from Emergency. That might muddy the idea that this is purely the original Trio, but I still think it is. As for track names, I've gone with Something Spiritual as the title for track 5. It also appeared on McLaughlin's My Goals Beyond with that name, but it has shown up as Something Special on different pressings of Emergency and My Goals....
Enjoy this trip back to a very different time in music, and the searchings of some remarkable musicians.