Another Lifetime

Fifty-odd years later, the original version of Tony Williams’ Lifetime remains the most exciting band I ever saw. At Ungano’s in New York in the autumn of 1970, the three-piece Lifetime, with Larry Young on Hammond organ and John McLaughlin on guitar, produced a howling noise that seemed to take music into the next dimension. It was jazz, it was rock, it was somehow psychedelic, it was all of those things and none of them, with the burners turned right up. In that time and place, made by a trio of innovators, it was the sort of music that made you reach for the word ‘beyond’. It also made everyone else’s attempts at some kind of jazz-rock fusion sound like Muzak. Their double-album, Emergency!, had created a bit of a stir, but its appeal was seriously undermined by very dubious sound quality, as if they’d used poor-quality equipment and had left the final mix to the studio cat, and then pressed the result on twice-recycled vinyl. Listening to it was a bit of an ordeal, which is not…