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Jazz Articles about Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell: Tricycles
by John Kelman
Why guitarist Larry Coryell isn’t a bigger name is a mystery. Emerging in the ‘60s around the same time as John McLaughlin, Coryell’s forays into fusion actually predate McLaughlin’s, first fusing jazz with rock and country sensibilities in Gary Burton’s quartet, most notably on ‘67’s Duster and Lofty Fake Anagram. McLaughlin and Coryell even duked it out on Coryell’s Spaces , considered by many to be a classic fusion record. But Coryell’s career has strangely existed just below the radar, ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell/Badi Assad/John Abercrombie: Three Guitars
by Joshua Weiner
The “guitar summit" genre is densely populated these days, but few of these multiple-guitar, multiple-ego records are terribly inviting. There is a difference between good playing and good music, the latter being more difficult to produce than the former. The new Chesky release Three Guitars, combining jazz guitarists Larry Coryell and John Abercrombie with the Brazilian composer/guitarist/vocalist/body percussionist (really!) and all-around phenomenon Badi Assad, is thankfully one of those rare records from which the loveliness of the music is absorbed ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell: Cedars of Avalon
by C. Andrew Hovan
Spanning more genres than most of the guitarists his age, Larry Coryell was there when fusion was making its first appearance. Although largely unacknowledged, Gary Burton’s early RCA sides found Coryell playing with an edgy rock-inflected tone that was just as responsible for a new era in jazz as such commonly cited fusion classics like Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. The guitarist’s own Eleventh House band would also challenge John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, with the latter ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell / Steve Marcus / Steve Smith / Kai Eckhardt: Count's Jam Band Reunion
by Scott Andrews
Guitarist Larry Coryell and saxophonist Steve Marcus helped begin the exploration of the boundary between jazz and rock in the late 60s with the early fusion group Count's Rock Band. They recorded several records and then split up, all before 1969. Coryell went on to lead his own fusion band Eleventh House, while Marcus became the featured sax soloist in the Buddy Rich Big Band. After a chance meeting at a concert in 1999, Coryell and Marcus decided to reunite ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell: Inner Urge
by AAJ Staff
Without a second thought, jazz listeners acknowledge Larry Coryell’s prowess on the guitar. But ask one of those listeners to name one recent Larry Coryell performance they have attended or one tune he has recorded within the past decade, and you may get a blank stare. That’s because Larry Coryell--unlike, for example, John Scofield or Pat Metheny--loses his persona in his music. According to the demands of the music, Coryell transforms his technique and his musical concept for the total ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell, Murali Coryell, and Julian Coryell: The Coryells
by C. Michael Bailey
All In The Family. Last year saw Buck and John Pizzarelli’s Contrasts. This year it is the Coryell posse. The guitar playing here is fluid and exciting by all string benders. Whether originals or standards, the Coryell clan perform with an empathetic tour de force. Murali Coryell possesses an amazingly soulful voice that he applies to Al Green’s “Love and Happiness”. He reaches into the gutbucket for Muddy’s via the Allman Brothers Band “Trouble No More”. The tone of the ...
Continue ReadingLarry Coryell: The Coryells
by AAJ Staff
While listeners tend to focus on the effect of a musician’s music on their lives—for example, associating a song with a particular event throughout their lives—the musicians themselves absorb the effects of lifetime experiences and express those in their music. For example, Larry Coryell writes, “When Julian was born, I remember they were playing ‘Dancin’ In The Moonlight’ on the radio that morning. The next thing I know, Julian is 8 or 9...saying, ‘Dad, would you show me the changes ...
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