To the One

To the One was inspired by the 1965 John Coltrane album A Love Supreme. but lost to the Stanley Clarke album The Stanley Clarke Band. The other nominees were Never Can Say Goodbye by Joey DeFrancesco, Now Is the Time by Jeff Lorber, and Backatown by Trombone Shorty. ==The band==

McLaughlin has been playing with this group of musicians live since 2007 but this is their first release of new material. In addition to his keyboard playing throughout the album, Gary Husband also plays drums on two tracks, "Recovery" and "To the One". has a solo on the track "Discovery". Mark Mondesir plays drums on every track except "Recovery" and "To the One". Bandleader and composer, John McLaughlin, of course, provides all of the guitar work and even plays a guitar synth on "Lost and Found" and "To the One". ==Reception==

Mike Greenblatt called To the One "very heady, complicated, meandering, spiritual, bass-centric yet trebly and deeply satisfying" in The Aquarian Weekly. John Kelman in All About Jazz wrote that there is "no shortage of high octane playing here" and that it is "McLaughlin's most exhilarating work and group since his Heart of Things band in the late 1990s" and closed by saying that the album is "quite simply, McLaughlin's best album in well over a decade". Robert Bush, also in All About Jazz, called To the One the "most consistently engaging disc in years" and that "McLaughlin's chops have never been better". ==Track listing==

All tracks written by John McLaughlin • "Discovery" 6:19 • "Special Beings" 8:38 • "The Fine Line" 7:43 • "Lost and Found" 4:26 • "Recovery" 6:21 • "To the One" 6:34 ==Personnel==

• John McLaughlin – guitar, producer • Gary Husband – drums, keyboards, percussion • Etienne Mbappé – bass • Mark Mondesir – drums, percussion • Marcus Wippersberg – engineer, mixing • Beat Pfaendler – cover design, cover photo ==Charts==