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.

Donate to the Fighting Fund
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
CS+SN
Interview / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to drummer Steve Noble
LEDLEY album cover
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
somuah
Interview / 5 February 2025
5 February 2025
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to Ghanaian trumpeter PETER SOMUAH
Similar stories
CS
Culture / 2 September 2024
2 September 2024
James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Art Tatum Trio and Kevin Figes
Westbrook
Interview / 19 June 2024
19 June 2024
CHRIS SEARLE speaks to guitarist Gary Boyle
TB Albums
Album reviews / 13 May 2024
13 May 2024
Scotland's finest, hippie memorabilia and the best Americana of 2024 so far: reviews of Jack Bruce, Music from Laurel Canyon, and Dylan LeBlanc
JB+
Album reviews / 23 April 2024
23 April 2024
New releases include Jack Bruce, Music From Laurel Canyon 1967 - 1975 and Dylan LeBlanc