TS Larry Carlton vs Larry Coryell

Kid Charlemagne would not be the same without Larry Carlton, but the couple of his records I have heard did not do much for me either.

"whereas coryell has tons of great solo albums that are well worth listening to."

Larry Coryell just missed out not being on Colombia records or recording with Miles Davis. I think some of his fusion work is pretty close to John McLaughlin and a bit better than Al DiMeola. Coryell was definitely was in the fusion reactor at about the first bang, he just was working with Chico Hamilton and Gary Burton instead of Miles Davis and Chick Corea. The music was about as good, but with much less of a public profile. Coryell was also doing the high powered acoustic guitar jazz with John McLaughlin a few years before the success of those "Grace, Passion and Fire" records which were really popular.

The sad thing is about Coryell is that I have heard quite a bit of his music, but not much that was made in the last 25 years. I know Coryell has gone back and made a bunch of more standard Jazz guitar music, but I don't know much about it at all.

I'm sure both of these dudes have been mistaken for each other more times than about anyone this side of Dr. Lonnie Smith and Lonnie Liston Smith.

Coryell S: Spaces w/McLaughlin and Billy Cobham, and this one high-powered organ trio thing I have from the 90s

Coryell D: some interview I read where he was whining that he should have been Jimi Hendrix by rights

i never heard anything by him till abt four years ago and i quite liked it! (it wz sort of steely danish)

so hurrah!

i accept this argt will not stand up in the courts of time

No? He plays on five Joni Mitchell albums (starting with Court and Spark) and four Steely Dan albums (starting with Katy Lied). I've never heard a solo recording, though.

listening to 11th house/coryell right now (rip)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR-VI_vyeGI

(this really must have been sampled for a heap of rap beats, right?)

funny this thread exists. I feel bad admitting that I've seen Larry Coryell's name pop up in guitar magazines and elsewhere over the years, but I don't think I've ever listened to him. More often than not, I have indeed confused him with Larry "Fat Time" Carlton.

and of course, now I'm confusing Larry Carlton with Mike Stern.. duh...

coryell >>>>>> stern i think

Practicing guitar has been a big thing for me over the past few years often with videos more around jazz guitar instruction. From this I came across videos from Robben Ford and both Larry Carlton who do teaching and their basic guitar videos have some pretty good stuff in them.

From this I was checking out going back into their records and reading what I could about that LA jazz/studio scene (been into Howard Roberts lately too and he was in that same orbit)...

Anyway, I got to say if you like jazz fusion or r&b based jazz - some of Larry Carlton's live stuff is pretty good. He must have a pretty good fanbase in Japan as he does lots of projects over there. That Japan jazz fusion scene has been getting some spotlight and Carlton both played over there and influenced lots of that music.

"Eight Times Up" is a live set from 82. It sounds like it is from 82 and that is a good thing. It's groovy and would not sound out of place driving around like Magnum PI.

The three later live records I have checked out and found pretty good listens are a Live in Tokyo with Robben Ford (2007), a Trio Live in Paris show (2011) which is pretty interesting as it is so stripped down but sounds really big, and a collaboration with Steve Lukather Live at Osaka (2001). The Lukather record is more rock fusion than the other stuff which is pretty r&B/Steely Dan instrumental groove music.

I think how Larry Carlton voices his music on guitar is what I dig. Hes not playing these huge chords but he does some pretty huge sounding things on that Trio record. The collabs are good too, I liked the Ford one better as they are kind of two sides of a similar coin. They really weave together really well.

Thinking about stuff like Scary Goldings and listening to this music, I think Lady Gaga should make a collab filmed live in the studio with her on Piano and a bunch of those old jazz badasses and cut it like that old video of Leon Russell session from the 70s that is popular online.