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Larry Coryell R.I.P.


ghost of miles

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The great Larry Coryell has passed. I saw him in person for three nights here in Melbourne, Australia in November last year. The memory of those superlative performances is fresh in my mind and heart. It makes this sad news more poignant. . Those nights I recently witnessed represented the pinnacle of what high energy Blues drenched Jazz guitar ever was or ever will be. His minor blues excursions were breathtaking and unsurpassed on those three nights. I once read Mr Coryell say that seeing Grant Green in performance was like witnessing a great philosopher king. Mr Coryell was a great philosopher king in Melbourne in November. 

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The one and only time I ever saw him was when he was perhaps with the same group CJ Shearn mentioned.  In 2015 he was at the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest with Bombay Jazz, a quartet of Larry Coryell, saxophonist George Brooks, bamboo flutist Ronu Majumdar and tabla player Aditya Kalyanpur.  I only saw the last half of their set, but it was very interesting music.

May he Rest In Peace.

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Depressing news.

I recollect seeming him live four times, in very different circumstances. Once in Arlington, Texas, at a bar/club where he played a solo concert on acoustic and electric guitar. It was an impressive performance. Then at the Time Cafe in New York, in a five guitar group playing Mingus compositions. Next playing with a quartet, in the vein of his Muse recordings, at the Blue Note. The last time, at the Granada Theater in Dallas, playing in a trio in the jazz-rock style, but for some reason this evening the music just wasn't working. Unfortunately, no more chances.

 

Edited by kh1958
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Really depressing, and as Hardbopjazz said, all these musicians who died in the last 10 years are the musicians of our youth. We had all those greats still alive and active on scene, the established masters , and people like Larry Coryell were the "young lions", the musicians who were in their early 30´s and played more "wild". Like Larry Corryell , Alphonse Mouzon.

And I think besides their fans they got a lot of young people to listen to the older masters, like the big selling Mingus had when he decided to get Larry Corryell involved. And I loved it, the way he does it on "Three or Four Shades of the Blues". Because Larry didn´t have to make commitments to adapt his style to the older master. He really could play the way he felt and what he was famous for. I liked his solos much more than the somehow half hearted efforts of Phillipe Caterine or John Scofield on that record. Anyway it seemed that Corryell was the man who would have stayed of Mingus had lived more. A tour with him was allready announced in Europe in late 77, and he was on the last sessions in 1978 (Me myself an Eye etc.).

 

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