If only one purchase of the year, this is it. I scurried through my old tapes and CDs trying to piece J McL's career, listening to the full versions wherever possible. What fun for me, and what a fantastic talent this man is. This collection only duplicates two tracks with the earlier John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra The Collection CD from Castle. A terrific retrospective of a wonderful musician still in top form (Crossroads 2007). Definitely Buy Now!

John McLaughlin is always great and this CD reflects John's absolute professionality and skills. The CD is very equilibrated in my oppinion. This CD has an additional interest as the first CD includes recordings I did not have although I thought I had almost everything. But for surprises check also on the CD with Jaco Pastorius. That is also very interesting: Trio of Boom.

I am practically an acolyte of John McLaughlin's work. I accept no substitutes and will defend it to the death. But this collection succeeds more in giving one a chronological tour of his work than actually gathering the best of his work. I laud the inclusion of some very rare (and astounding) material from John's early career as a sideman, but some tracks, such as "Marbles" from his late 60's album, Devotion, seem to be needlessly included for the sake of covering all ground, chronologically speaking. Contrarily, the only example of his groundbreaking and revolutionary work with Miles Davis is a 17 minute long edit of "Right Off". Don't get me wrong; I love the cut, but I think there are much more worthy efforts from this period that truly embody his personal approach to playing (the solo feature simply titled "John McLaughlin" from Bitches Brew, for example). Aside from these few perceived faults of mine, I have to say I love the collection and highly recommend it to any McLaughlin-ite or other curious party.