Original Album Classics Electri C Guitarist/Electric Dreams/Shakti/N Atural Elements/A Handful Of Beauty

Excellent item and sound, service and service

British guitarist John McLaughlin was one of the pioneers of jazz fusion in the late Sixties and early Seventies, playing on many Miles Davis sessions and putting together the Mahavishnu Orchestra. During 1974 he decided to take a break from electric music and formed Shakti with several Indian musicians. Their first album was recorded live and consisted of only three compositions, one a whopping 29 minutes. Some sections were played at breakneck speed and others were quiet and meditative. A long tabla passage mirrored the drum solos that were the rage at the time. Moving into the studio resulted in mostly shorter songs and a more dynamic ensemble sound on A Handful of Beauty and Natural Elements. By the time they recorded Elements Shakti had become much more Western oriented, but they did not record again for two decades. McLaughlin plugged in again with Electric Guitarist and Electric Dreams. Although critics rate the former higher and the musicians included many of the fusion superstars of the time, it seems to me that Dreams was superior, even though one number had a rather vapid vocal added. Neither rose to the level of the Davis sessions McLaughlin played on or to the original Mahavishnu recordings. Overall, I give this bundle about 3 stars overall. The Shakti sets are the meat of the package; the Electric stuff is not essential.

The price is nice for five amazing albums. However, the five disks were mislabeled. I was familiar with three of the albums, so I was able to deduce what was what and then relabeled them with a black marker. At first I thought I might not have all five recordings, but they are all accounted for. Maybe this is a one-off, but I wanted to note this so the disks can be checked for quality assurance to avert any potential head scratching for others. I like to be nice so I am deducting only one star for the labels. Good enough. Thank you.

I find it hard to understand why people complain about the packaging of a product when the fact that you're getting five complete albums by one of the most gifted guitarists of his (or any) generation for (including S & H) less than $4.00 per CD.In fact by buying from an Amazon seller I got mine for less than at just a shade over $2.00 per CD. That my friends is WORTH IT! (and that's an understatement). The three SHAKTI CD's are incredible and timeless. The two Electric CD's are verging into Mahavishnu Orchestra territory which is fine too. Personally I love the reproduction sleeves and as long as you're careful, the CD's stay in good shape despite he lack of ease of removal. My advice - if you missed this man's music the first time arounnd, there is no better time than now to get acquainted.THere are other worthy reissues in the series and the prices are every bit as enticing so pardon while I browse....

I had one of the 5 sleeves empty, and the albums were mislabeled and in wrong sleeves. But the music is great, excellent sound quality, if you just want some JM music, both electric and Shakti for the car CD player, it is worth the small investment to get several hours of music.

Great mix of John's talents in different settings and solo

Electric Guitarist-CD labled Shakti/Electric Dreams-CD labled A Handful of Beauty/Shakti-CD labled Natural Elements/A Handful of Beauty-CD labled Electric Guitarist/Natural Elements-CD labled Electric Guitarist. I hope this was just a mistake and not fake CD’s.

I guess that the three shakty albums are some of the most beautiful and incredible albums I ever listened !the first one is an absurd live performance, and the other two are studio ones. In particular the 7th track ("get down and sruti") on the third album ("natural elements") is maybe the best jazz piece I've listened in all my life. While I give 5+++ stars to the first three, I would give maybe 4 stars to the other two. In fact they are quite good, but not beautiful ad unique like the shakty stuff. But naturally they are still great, from the greatest jazz guitarist in history. The most amazing thing in the album "electric dreams" is the Santana collaboration on the song "friendship". The box set is really good: cheap and with very hig audio quality CDs

All the albums are here, unfortunately what is printed on the cd is not what plays. Not one is correct! This doesn't bother me but I can imagine it would bother some people.

To paraphrase a famous duet, all the right music but not necessarily in the right order. If you like your soaraway guitar and violin leavened with a little detective work beforehand this is the set for you. If not, sorry, despite all the feedback on here this is an initially frustrating, poorly packaged and labelled product. Still, you should get there in the end.

Music good, the images on the CDs don't match the album on the CD, which is rather strange, so it's slightly difficult to know what one is listening to.

This great set replaces my great 33LPs of the same names. I was also in shock the first time I heard a non-Shakti disk labeled as Shakti. Luckily, the set comes with CD text, and that helps reshuffle all the mislabeled disks to the right sleeves

Complete rubbish, all tracks mixed across various CDs, listings on sleeve do not match CD tracks and a duplicated CD as well so only got 4 albums not 5. Very poor artwork on sleeves, and NO returns.