Albert Stinson

Larry Coryell: Improvisations: Best of the Vanguard Years

by Josef Woodard
February 6, 2023

There have been many smoother operators in the world of jazz guitar than Larry Coryell, the brainy rough rider who was a natural-born fusioneer, in the best sense. There have been cleaner technicians on the instrument, with a more lucid sense of identity and careers that have followed a logical, rolling landscape. But not many have quite attained Coryell's strange, madly eclectic state of grace: into music he came, he saw and heard things not yet articulated, he conquered on ...

Bobby Hutcherson: Oblique

by Chris May
August 18, 2005

A welcome and worthwhile addition to Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder remaster series, Oblique is one of only two quartet albums Bobby Hutcherson recorded for the label, and it's the most enduring by a long mile. Two tracks in particular, “Oblique" and “Bi-Sectional," both by genius drummer/composer Joe Chambers, are bona fide, five star hall-of-fame greats.

Hutcherson's first quartet album was Happenings, recorded in '66. Oblique followed in '67. The lineup on both occasions was the same except ...