New Video of Tony Williams with Larry Young

First-ever video of Lifetime in 1970 is now on YouTube

The original Tony Williams Lifetime, a trio consisting of Williams, the great Larry Young on organ, and a then-unknown British guitarist named John McLaughlin, still retains the power to shock and awe today. Formed by Tony in early 1969, their sole album, Emergency!, remains a potent Sixties artifact. Check out Hank Shteamer’s beautiful essay on Emergency! at Pitchfork for nuance, context, and infectious enthusiasm for this great album.

The trio was short lived, lasting barely a year before they added Jack Bruce, the legendary bassist and vocalist, then recently of Cream and in the midst of launching his solo career. In the fall of 1970, upon the release of their second LP, Turn It Over (Polydor), Lifetime, now a quartet of McLaughlin, Young, Bruce, and Williams, were booked on a European tour.

No video footage of the 1969-1970 Lifetime was known to be released. However, it’s long been understood that during their fall 1970 European tour, the quartet appeared on Beat Club, the legendary German television program which ran from 1966 to 1972. Beat Club was a music show, and featured professionally filmed in-studio live performances, mostly by the classic rock bands of the era. Here’s the Wiki article.

For many years, however, the Beat Club YouTube channel had only a few seconds of Lifetime, along with an explanation that the band was “too arrogant” to complete filming their segment of the program.

Huh? The white rock bands of this era, most of whom were on Beat Club, were not known for their humility, but they don’t seem to have had a problem filming complete performances!

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Whatever the full details might be, this past Saturday, September 1, the Beat Club YouTube channel was suddenly hosting a video of The Tony Williams Lifetime, filmed in 1970, possibly on November 24th¹. This is it— the first-ever video to emerge of the McLaughlin/Young-era Lifetime.

The roughly 10-minute video is, as far as I know, the only video we have of Williams between 1967 and 1971, and in addition, only the third video of Larry Young to emerge². Is this also the earliest film of McLaughlin?

This is historic footage, filling a lacuna in our shared memory. McLaughlin and Bruce, thankfully, were filmed throughout their long careers, and there is plenty of footage of Tony Williams with his great quintet and other projects in the Eighties and Nineties. But there is precious little of Larry Young, and not much of Tony before the late Seventies.

The video looks great, and while I find the editing occasionally distracting, I’m so thrilled to have a glimpse of these giants that I can look past it. According to the few musicians I’ve spoken with who saw the band, Tony Williams with Larry Young and John McLaughlin was the most intense and thrilling group of its era. We now have a chance to at least see a shadow of what that was.

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Lifetime mostly focussed on Williams’ compositions; curiously, this video features a medley of themes by John McLaughlin and Jack Bruce. Though the video says they are playing “A Famous Blues”, a McLaughlin tune on Turn It Over, I don’t hear any connection between that track and what they are playing here.

The four themes break down like this:

• The initial vamp in 7, held down by Bruce and McLaughlin as Young solos, suggest the beginning of McLaughlin’s “Trilogy”, later recorded by the Mahavishnu Orchestra³.

• At 1:11, when Williams enters, the song is “Smiles and Grins”, written and sung by Bruce, with lyrics by Pete Brown⁴.

• At 2:39, they go into the 7/4 vamp of McLaughlin’s “Devotion”⁵. When Bruce’s vocals return, we get quick re-cap of “Smiles and Grins” before hearing an early version of….

• ….“The Dance of Maya”, a classic Mahavishnu⁶ track, starting at 6:31.

Here is the video. Please enjoy!

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For me, beyond loving the overall sound of the band, and savoring the great shots of Larry Young, it’s moving to see Tony Williams, one of the true geniuses of music, grapple so directly with the prevailing sounds of the day. Jazz-rock was experimental music in 1970. No one knows where this music is headed, no one can say if this will work or not.

I love Lifetime’s energy and commitment, and I especially admire Williams’ bravery, the sense that he is far outside his comfort zone. Nothing Tony is doing is easy, comfortable, or known. Just picking an obvious example: who else had the technique, musicality, charisma, and sheer guts to play a small jazz drumset in a band with ferociously loud and heavily amplified guitar, bass, and organ, and make it work?

I’m so thrilled to have this video. And we can look past the historical importance and focus on the pleasure we get from the music; we don’t need to know anything to enjoy it. It’s a lot of fun to watch Lifetime in 1970!

1. I’ve seen this date bandied about but with no explanation of how it’s known. Readers, of course, please fill me in if you know!

2. The only other Larry Young footage I know of is two concerts from Lifetime’s European tour in the summer of 1971, featuring Williams, Young, Ted Dunbar, Juini Booth, Warren Smith, and Don Alias. Again, readers, if there is more, let me know! Update from comments: a reader named Bill White sent me this YouTube link, a few minutes of a Larry Young gig, evidently at Montreux, Switzerland. Thanks Bill!

3. This is featured on Mahavishnu Orchestra Between Nothingness And Eternity (Columbia, 1973) and The Lost Trident Sessions (Sony/Legacy, recorded 1973, released 1998).

4. Bruce featured this song on his 1971 Harmony Row album (Atco).

5. This is the title track from McLaughlin’s second leader date, Devotion (Douglas, 1970), a Lifetime-adjacent album featuring Larry Young and Buddy Miles on drums.

6. “The Dance of Maya” is on the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album, The Inner Mounting Flame (Columbia, 1971).