John McLaughlin & Jimmy Herring Add Chicago Date & Announce NYC Pre-Sale

As reported, John McLaughlin And The 4th Dimension will embark on a co-headlining “The Meeting Of The Spirits” tour with Widespread Panic guitarist Jimmy Herring and his new band The Invisible Whip late this year. McLaughin and Herring will each play a set with their own groups before coming together for “an expansive closing jam based on classic Mahavishnu Orchestra material.” A second Chicago concert has been added to the run and pre-sale details for the tour’s stop in New York City, expected to be McLaughlin’s last performance in the Big Apple, have been revealed.

After tickets for The Meeting Of The Spirits Tour stop at Chicago’s Vic Theatre on November 17 sold out quickly, a second concert has been added and will take place on November 18. Tickets for the November 18th performance will go on sale this Friday, February 24 at 10 a.m. CT via Ticketfly. McLaughlin and Herring will bring their respective bands to Town Hall in New York City on November 3. A presale is currently underway using the password “mahavishnu” through Ticketmaster. John McLaughin reminisced about his relationship with New York City:

By the time I was 15, New York was the center of the world. Of course I speak as a jazz musician, but I’m not sure if Americans can understand the impact New York in general, and Harlem in particular, had on musicians from Europe, the U.K. and Asia – basically everywhere outside of the US.

New York was THE CAPITAL of jazz. It was like a gigantic magnet for musicians. We all knew about California, the southern states and the mid-west, but we all knew that New York was the only place to be. For years, I dreamed about going to New York. Of course it was a fabulous dream that I never expected to become reality, but actually getting of the Icelandic Airways plane at JFK on January 6th 1969, I was overcome with a desire to kiss the ground. Since it was so icy and surrounded by mountains of snow, I didn’t, but my heart did. I was there to play with legendary drummer Tony Williams and Hammond organist Larry Young, aka Khalid Yasin, and the very day I arrived I met Miles Davis who invited me to record with him the following day on the recording ‘In a Silent Way’….This was beyond all imagination!

To me, New York was and remains to this day, true America. And now, even though I no longer live in New York, it will always be my “home” – The center of the world.

Tickets for the NYC show go on sale to the general public this Friday at 12 p.m. ET.