Skip to main content
Guitar over Gaza

John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension 
Live at Ronnie Scott’s
(Mediastar2)

JOHN McLAUGHLIN’S Gaza City, from his March 2017 album Live at Ronnie Scott’s is one of those very few and precious recorded jazz performances that resonate with the living reality of epochal moments of people’s struggles.

It is comparable to John Coltrane’s Alabama, the tribute to the four girls murdered by racists’ dynamite in the basement of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 in the midst of the civil rights campaign, or Hugh Masekela’s Sharpeville, exposing the deathly violence of South African apartheid, or Freddie Hubbard’s 1971 threnody Sing Me A Song of Songmy, an album dedicated to the families slaughtered by rampaging US troops in a Vietnamese village.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
oto
Jazz / 30 April 2025
30 April 2025

CHRIS SEARLE wallows in an evening of high class improvised jazz, and recommends upcoming highlights in May

Interview / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer Steve Noble
Men’s football / 4 April 2025
4 April 2025
CHRIS SEARLE interviews saxophonist Chris Williams about the extraordinary electro-acoustic album LEDLEY - a bold fusion of Jazz, football, and community spirit
Ineza
Interview / 26 February 2025
26 February 2025
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Rwanda-born jazz vocalist INEZA
Similar stories
TB
Music / 12 May 2025
12 May 2025

A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens 

Album reviews / 14 October 2024
14 October 2024
New releases from Etienne Charles, Jason Anick/Jason Yeager and Elliott Sharp/Sally Gates/Tashi Dorji
Culture / 2 September 2024
2 September 2024
James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Art Tatum Trio and Kevin Figes
Gary Boyle (centre) with the Mike Westbrook Band, 1972
Interview / 19 June 2024
19 June 2024
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to guitarist Gary Boyle