** John McLaughlin

THE HEART OF THINGS

(Verve)

One look at the personnel credits and you know you're in trouble. Note particularly the presence of keyboardist Jim Beard, who's adept at lousing up nearly every CD he appears on with annoyingly gauche chord stabs using the cheesiest synth sounds known to Yamaha's R&D department. This album is, sadly, no exception. Adding to the contempo-jazz aroma is McLaughlin's own guitar work, much of which is played through a MIDI hook-up that makes his ax sound as if it were submerged under 20 feet of water. Worse, though his sense of invention and hair-raising velocity is intact, the fire of old is conspicuously absent. In fact, despite Gary Thomas's jumpy sax, Dennis Chambers's Billy Cobham-esque drumming, and some interesting compositions, the whole album is flat and unaffecting. And the direct quote from Mahavishnu's classic "The Dance of Maya" during "Mr. D.C." only underlines what's missing.

-- Mac Randall