All About Larry Coryell, pt.5.
Larry Coryell’s autobiography:
Improvising -My Life in Music (book)
Published by Backbeat Books, NY 2007
It seems Larry met Ron Carter for the first time in 1966, when doing his first gig with Chico Hamilton in Philadelphia. That fills in a little background I hadn’t known when I saw them on stage in 2014 –forty-eight years right there! And he met his guitar hero around that time, too -the inimitable Wes Montgomery. Imagine his delight as he chatted away to him, hoping to learn some gems of guitar wisdom. He did, too. Fast forward to 1993 and we can hear Larry and Wes seemingly playing together in ‘Angel on a Sunset’, a track in which Larry plays over, or along with, Wes’s 1966 recording. It didn’t go down well with Pat Metheny, who maybe thought it sacrilegious. But Larry was like, well, hell, you can’t please all the people all the time! That, and many other details, we can learn from his wonderful autobiography, entitled Improvising -My Life in Music (2007).
It’s a very honest account of his life, and what a life it was! The highs and the lows, the latter often coming from addiction. It interfered with his personal life and with his music, but he came through it. I think a lot of musicians have encountered such madness in their journeys. Imagine that at the very height (up until that moment) of his career, playing with Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin in the super trio, Larry was indulging his lesser demons and messing up badly. Was it success? Was it the inability to handle what glory he had carved out for himself? Whatever it was, it was something he knew he needed to address and did so, triumphantly. Larry is very upfront about all of this and this makes the reader love him all the more. We get to travel with Larry in this book, like when he drives, solo, from Seattle, leaving behind the beauty of the great outdoors, toward the unknownable in New York City. It took great courage to uproot himself and follow the urges of his inner muse.
So many musicians he met in his lifetime, and so many musicians he played with -including jamming with, and getting to know, Jimi Hendrix! (Oh, one musician he doesn’t mention is the Irish Jimi H, Rory Gallagher -but he did in fact see Rory and was totally wowed by him. (Just had to get that in there, as an Irishman!) Others? Gabor Szabo. Jim Hall. Grant Green. Tal Farlow. Steve Khan. Charles Mingus (whom he also doesn't mention, despite having featured very prominently on his 1977 album....) Miles Davis. Keith Jarrett. Chick Corea. George Benson and just about every human being who could make sounds with a geetar. (Oh, and don’t let’s forget John LaChapelle -his first jazz guitar teacher!) Of course Chico Hamilton, and Gary Burton, as they had him in their respective bands, boosting his profile and gifting him with great experience. Why list all the musicians Larry played with? It would be a who’s who of everyone, basically. But it’s also the musicians that aren’t so well known that he befriended and traded off against and learnt from that is so much a part of this story. Larry had big ears, as they say. He listened to everyone and everything, and everyone and everything went into the mix of what he could draw on. He’s walking through the streets of NYC and wondering how he can combine John Coltrane and George Harrison. He’s wondering such stuff because he’s at the forefront of what would be called ‘jazz-fusion’. He would listen to rock and employ rock aspects into his jazz guitar playing. We know that from listening to him -even when doing straight jazz. Man, is Larry wild when he gets going! He can be the most subtle guitar player ever, but he can also have incredible attack on those strings, electric or acoustic. If music was ‘happening’, Larry dug it -he didn’t care what category it was supposed to be in. He then created his own ‘happening’ music.
The nature of his career is different from, say, that of John McLaughlin’s. I have always been an ardent McLaughlin fan, and I have followed all his various stages, which were distinct artistic development stages. In the same way we talk of Picasso’s ‘blue period’, John had his ‘Mahavishnu’ period, his ‘Shakti’ period etc… I can see Larry did have something similar, for example, in his electric pursuits with Eleventh House and his acoustic adventures with Philip Catherine, but, as this narrative confirms, at least for me, Larry tended to be a little more fluid or flexible, or even flighty. He would do stuff for a while and then just get bored by it and want to do something else. Unlike McLaughlin, he doesn’t seem to have been as focused on some particular trajectory, or some vision -or at least not in quite the same spiritual mould as John. (Larry’s account of how he didn’t quite conform to the spiritual discipline requested of followers of guru Sri Chimnoy -because he had a hankering for some beer and women!- and how that contrasted with John, is cringe-makingly funny.) Larry was certainly a little more beery than John, that’s for damn sure. One gets the impression that Larry was an enormously gregarious soul, and while that had drawbacks in the fact that it likely led to lots of booze-ups, it also made him the kind of musician who would meet everyone and play with everyone -just to have fun and see what might happen. It is also telling to note a musical difference with John, that Larry more openly embraces the blues. One does hear blues in John, of course, but it’s often wrapped within a complex matrix of other stuff, and whatever blues dwelt within him has become even less identifiable in recent years. Larry has no problem with playing straight ahead blues -and, my, does he do it well. The album which came out of that Jim Hall tribute gig had Larry doing one of the best solos I’ve ever heard anyone ever play -in ‘Bag’s Groove’. It is blues, but Larry Coryell doing the blues -with grace and danger, and deep jazz, at every corner.
Larry did find spirituality, eventually, but the kind that could save him in his hour of need, or within the vacuum and emptiness that followed rehab. He entered Soka Gakkai, based in Japan. Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock are also members. He got into the chanting big time, and this really helped him to clear his mind and feel fulfilled and aware. We see him call upon this new aspect in his life in his attempts to come to terms with humanity when at its worst. In 1999, he was commissioned to write a piece for guitar and orchestra to commemorate the terrorist bombing of Bologna Station in Italy in 1981. It was a project that brought him so close to the tragedy that exists from time to time in this world, and no doubt made him reflect greatly on the nature of the human experience. He found himself wanting to learn about the victims, and he placed photos of them on the altar in his house and chanted for the repose of their souls and the comfort of their loved ones. It is not difficult to see how this consciousness grew within him going forward. Musically, it also gave him a taste for composition in the orchestral mode. This all gives context to his later project of War & Peace, which highlights the folly of human conflict and the importance of love. We learn of his other earlier orchestral projects, not only about his version of Ravel’s Bolero, but also about his work on Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and other material.
Larry did find spirituality, eventually, but the kind that could save him in his hour of need, or within the vacuum and emptiness that followed rehab. He entered Soka Gakkai, based in Japan. Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock are also members. He got into the chanting big time, and this really helped him to clear his mind and feel fulfilled and aware. We see him call upon this new aspect in his life in his attempts to come to terms with humanity when at its worst. In 1999, he was commissioned to write a piece for guitar and orchestra to commemorate the terrorist bombing of Bologna Station in Italy in 1981. It was a project that brought him so close to the tragedy that exists from time to time in this world, and no doubt made him reflect greatly on the nature of the human experience. He found himself wanting to learn about the victims, and he placed photos of them on the altar in his house and chanted for the repose of their souls and the comfort of their loved ones. It is not difficult to see how this consciousness grew within him going forward. Musically, it also gave him a taste for composition in the orchestral mode. This all gives context to his later project of War & Peace, which highlights the folly of human conflict and the importance of love. We learn of his other earlier orchestral projects, not only about his version of Ravel’s Bolero, but also about his work on Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and other material.
Larry’s book is a beautiful read. It is fun. The chapters are short and sweet, and the narrative is laced with humour -humour and a profound sense of humanity. We learn about Larry's private life and his great love for family and the people in his life, his children and his wonderful wife Tracey. It also contains a number of his entries for Guitar Player Magazine, invaluable for guitarists -oh, and an instructional CD! What more could you want? (Says the person who has not yet tried the CD -a deferred delight!)