MahavishnuProject News

April 21 , 2008
NEW GREGG BENDIAN SOLO DISC!

Maha-drummer Gregg Bendian has just released a new solo disc. 
Find out more here...

February 28 , 2008
WELCOME THE NEW MAHAVISHNU PROJECT!
The wheel has turned and new energy will be injected into The Mahavishnu Project once again.
 
Drummer/founder Gregg Bendian will be joined by guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg [Michael Brecker/Joe Henderson], Neil Alexander, keyboards [Joe Lovano/John Scofield], Brad Jones, bass [Don Byron/Elvin Jones], and violin mainstay Zach Brock [Stanley Clarke/Ravi Coltrane].
 
The band has two debut performances: Fri. March 28th at Mexicali Blues in Teaneck NJ and Wed. April 2nd at Iridium Jazz Club in NYC. To celebrate, the band will be performing “The Complete BIRDS OF FIRE!”  (Be on the lookout for special guests.) Don't miss the beginning of this new era in Mahavishnu music. You can find more information on the upcoming shows here.

ANOTHER RAVE FOR "RETURN TO THE EMERALD BEYOND"
This one is from METALJAZZ.COM....

"The Mahavishnu Project: “Return to the Emerald Beyond” (Cuneiform)

Drummer Gregg Bendian acts as a grandchild of electric Miles via the Mahavishnu Project, which has been performing John McLaughlin records in their entirety for years. And “Visions of the Emerald Beyond” is the album the guitar blazer has named as his favorite.

Bendian says his two-disc “Return” is “rooted between jazz and classical interpretive performance”; the Project hits a good balance with a live take that sometimes echoes the template, sometimes amplifies the arrangements, usually takes off on its own solo paths to triple original song lengths. Speedy Glenn Alexander plays the McLaughlin role; Rob Thomas makes a credible Jean Luc Ponty on violin.

Bendian himself, waxing big and heavy on the Mike Walden stool, gives the record its distinctively modern character -- he endows “Be Happy” with skin-busting momentum and “Lila’s Dance” with an Indo-Zeppified feel. Fans of Echoplex excess will trip out on the flights of “Pegasus.” “Opus I,” a chamber piece expanded to an entire two minutes, contracts and relaxes its neoclassical harshness like a yoga exercise. There are three bonus tracks; I had to check on whether Mahavishnu or proto-metalers UFO (on “Rock Bottom”) played the riff of Jan Hammer’s “Sister Andrea” first. The winner by a year, in 1973 on M.O.’s live “Between Nothingness and Eternity,” appears to be Hammer, who cut “Andrea” with Jeremy Steig and Tommy Bolin as early as 1971.

By the way: “Return” has just claimed the award for best progressive jazz album of 2007 at the Progressive Rock Hall of Fame Awards. Two great things: An excellent unit gets a slap on the back, and I now know there is a Progressive Rock Hall of Fame. Does the Hall use superfine sci-fi grafix? You bet your ass."

October 2 , 2007
GREGG BENDIAN ON TOUR IN EUROPE & U.S. WITH THE MUSICAL BOX!
Find tour dates here...

July 11, 2007
NEW YORK TIMES RAVES ABOUT VISHNU FEST!!!
Read the review in the NY Times here...
[Please note correction: The violinist performing on VishnuFest was Zach Brock.]
 
 

 
“I really enjoyed seeing them.  It was great.  It was wonderful.  I admire those guys because they tried something that is very hard.  They managed to carry it off.  They did it.  They came through.  The key to the band as much as the mystique of John's Indian name or the music he wrote - I think what carried it through - was the performance of the five people.  It was a performing band.  It is very hard to get that on record.  Anybody can read the parts and learn them but then you have to step in and do something with it.  That is the key - what you do with it as a performer and improviser.  Improvisation is what finally makes it work in the end.  These guys really caught onto it.  That's what was wonderful about it.”
-Jan Hammer (August 2005)