Larry Coryell


Larry Coryell was an American jazz guitarist, widely considered the "godfather of fusion". Alongside Gábor Szabó, he was a pioneer in melding jazz, country and rock music. Coryell was also a music teacher and a writer, penning a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine from 1977 to 1989. He collaborated with a number of other high-profile musicians, including John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitouš, Billy Cobham, Lenny White, Emily Remler, Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, Steve Morse and others.
WWW larrycoryell.net

Early life

Larry Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas, United States. He never knew his biological father, a musician. He was raised by his stepfather Gene, a chemical engineer, and his mother Cora, who encouraged him to learn piano when he was four years old.
In Coryell's teens, he switched to guitar. After his family moved to Richland, Washington, he took lessons from a teacher who lent him albums by Les Paul, Johnny Smith, Barney Kessel, and Tal Farlow. When asked what jazz guitar albums influenced him, Coryell cited On View at the Five Spot Cafe by Kenny Burrell, Red Norvo with Strings, and The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery. He liked blues and pop music and tried to play jazz when he was eighteen. He said that hearing Wes Montgomery changed his life.
Coryell graduated from Richland High School, where he played in local bands the Jailers, the Rumblers, the Royals, and the Flames. He also played with the Checkers from Yakima. Coryell then moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington.

Career

1960s

In September 1965, Coryell moved to New York City, where he attended Mannes School of Music. After moving to New York, he listened to classical composers such as Bartók, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich.
Coryell replaced guitarist Gábor Szabó in Chico Hamilton's quintet. His challenge, at the time, was to combine the bluesy, psychedelic rock 'n' roll of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience with his jazz training. Of the latter, Coryell first saw them live in 1967 at the Manhattan nightclub The Scene and was "very impressed" by them. Coryell's continued attendance to The Scene exposed him to further music of a similar ilk, catching the performances of Frank Zappa, Buddy Guy, The Velvet Underground, Stevie Winwood, The Doors and others.
In 1969, former Miles Davis Quintet drummer Tony Williams invited Coryell to join his new band, The Tony Williams Lifetime. While flattered by the invitation, he politely declined and suggested, in his place, his British friend and NY newcomer John McLaughlin, then known as "Johnny Mac." It was a career-making move for McLaughlin. Because of his tenure with the Lifetime, he was invited to join Davis's electric band, recording In a Silent Way, the Bitches Brew double-album and Jack Johnson.

1970s

In the 1970s, Coryell led the group Foreplay with Mike Mandel, a friend since childhood, although the albums of this period, Barefoot Boy, Offering, and The Real Great Escape, were credited only to Larry Coryell.
In the wake of the success of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra he formed The Eleventh House in 1973, with drummer Alphonse Mouzon.
Their debut album, Introducing Eleventh House with Larry Coryell, peaked at #163 in Billboard 200 and stayed 11 weeks in the charts. It was deemed unfocused and overindulgent when compared with the quintet's inspiration source, the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Coryell himself admitted to such, stating that the record was a "search party", a product of a group still in search of its identity.
Larry Coryell recorded with Al Di Meola on Return to Forever drummer Lenny White's solo debut, Venusian Summer. Coryell and Di Meola traded solos on "Prince of the Sea", the album's last track. The pairing caused a stir on the fusion community, with fans wondering who played what solo. Coryell reveals this was the only time he and Di Meola played together with electric guitars.
Although enthusiastic about his contemporaries - namely Bill Connors, Allan Holdsworth, Di Meola and McLaughlin - in retrospect Coryell offered the following of mid-1970s fusion:
When fusion started losing steam Coryell turned to the acoustic guitar, recording duet albums with Steve Khan and Philip Catherine. The latter was responsible for Coryell's career turn, showing him in 1976 the Django Reinhardt song "Nuages". He also strengthened, in parallel, his role as a music educator. He gave private lessons and started writing a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine.
In 1978, Larry Coryell started a working relationship with Miles Davis. Davis had hip surgery and went to convalesce on Elena Steinberg's house on Connecticut, a friend of Julie, Coryell's wife. They started working on several pieces, including an unnamed "adagio" and a James Brown-like vamp on a 12/8 meter. Trumpet and synthesizer.
Larry Coryell recalls that his encounters with Miles Davis in the late 1970s unfolded against the backdrop of his own worsening alcoholism, and that Miles immediately perceived this vulnerability. While Davis himself kept beer chilled on the porch during his recovery in Connecticut, he casually handed Coryell a nearly empty bottle to finish and dryly remarked, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,” a comment that Coryell recognized as both perceptive and unsettling. These moments of shared drinking were not convivial bonding so much as stark reflections of mutual excess and self-awareness, occurring alongside cocaine use, erratic behavior, and physical decline. Coryell presents Miles as sharp, ironic, and unflinchingly honest about addiction, using humor and provocation rather than sympathy, and the episodes left Coryell with the sense that Miles saw through him completely—understanding his struggles even as both men remained trapped in destructive patterns at the time.
A year later Coryell formed The Guitar Trio with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia. The group toured Europe briefly, releasing a video recorded at Royal Albert Hall in London entitled Meeting of the Spirits.

1980s

Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin took part on the making of Paco de Lucía's Castro Marín. It was named after the hometown of Paco's Portuguese mother, Luzia. Recorded at Tokyo in Dezember 1980, Castro Marín remains one of the most obscure titles in his catalogue. Coryell and Paco played as duo on the fifth track, "Convite ", and as a trio on the next track "Palenque".
Coryell's alcoholism and drug abuse eventually cost him his spot on The Guitar Trio, in the early 1980s. Of his struggles in that period, he said:
When Coryell overcame his self-exile and his bout with alcoholism, he took on his most challenging project yet: solo versions of three Igor Stravinsky ballets, namely Scheherazade, L'Oiseau de Feu, Petrouchka and Le Sacre Du Printemps.
Coryell prepared for three months for recording Le Sacre Du Printemps. He became so "obsessed" by it that he got hand sores and blisters hands from over-rehearsing his parts. Three weeks before the recording sessions Coryell got cold feet, calling producer Teo Macero to say he was quitting the project. Macero convinced him otherwise, and he finally recorded the whole piece on March 21, 1983, on the vernal equinox. In the end he was proud of it, a "milestone" in his life. "It's like, if you can tackle Stravinsky, you can tackle anything," he said on an interview to DownBeat.
One year later, Coryell collaborated with award-winning classical guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita on a guitar duo rendition of Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, a Japan-only release. "All I remember about this record is how amazingly this young Japanese guitarist played", Coryell wrote on his autobiography. He also said he had "fun" playing the "music of Vivaldi, of all people." The concert was also released on laser disc.
In 1985, Coryell recorded Together with fellow guitarist Emily Remler, who died in 1990.

2000s

Since 2008, Coryell toured in a duo with fusion guitarist Roman Miroshnichenko.

2010s

Starting in 2010, Coryell toured with a trio that included pianist John Colianni.

Artistry

Inspiration

Coryell’s speaks about his first encounter with Indian raga music, when he first heard a Ravi Shankar record in 1962. What struck him immediately was the way the strings were bent, something that resonated with what he had already absorbed from musicians like Chuck Berry. Beyond that, he was drawn to the sustained drone and the depth of expression in the music, which made him feel an immediate sense of affinity with it. Coryell attributes his sense of connection with Indian music to shared folk origins. He heard strong traces of the blues in raga: the plaintive quality, the twang, and even a kind of vocalized gasp or cry that gives the music its emotional weight.

Personal life

Coryell was first married to writer-actress Julie Nathanson, daughter of actress Carol Bruce. She appeared on the covers of several of his albums and later wrote the book Jazz-Rock Fusion, which was based on interviews with many of Coryell's peers, including Chick Corea and John McLaughlin. She also sang intermittently with Coryell, including one track on the 1984 album Comin' Home. The couple had two sons and Julian Coryell, both professional guitarists, before divorcing in 1985. Thereafter, he had a brief romance with fellow jazz guitarist and artistic collaborator Emily Remler.
In 1988, Coryell remarried, to Connecticut native Mary Schuler; they divorced in 2005. Two years later, he married his last wife, Tracey Lynn Piergross, in Orlando, Florida, where he resided until his death in 2017.
After overcoming his alcohol and heroin addictions in 1981, Coryell began practicing Nichiren Buddhism.
In November 2016, Coryell condemned Donald Trump following his election to the presidency of the United States. "This is an unacceptable situation", he said to Bill Milkowski of DownBeat.
Shortly after these comments were published, Coryell wrote to Downbeat to apologize and retract:

Death

Coryell died of heart failure on February 19, 2017, in a New York City hotel room at the age of 73. He had performed at the Iridium Jazz Club in Manhattan on the preceding two days.
Coryell's last opera, based on Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, was presented at the 2017 World of Guitar opening, featuring the Moscow Symphony along with Roman Miroshnichenko, Serbian classical guitarist Nenad Stephanovich, and Slovenian opera soloists. The world premiere was dedicated to Coryell, the "godfather of fusion". The opera was completed by Miroshnichenko and Stephanovich after the death of Coryell.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

Lady Coryell Coryell Spaces Barefoot Boy Fairyland Larry Coryell at the Village Gate Offering The Real Great Escape Introducing Eleventh House with Larry Coryell Planet End Level One The Restful Mind The Lion and the Ram Basics Aspects Back Together Again with Alphonse Mouzon Two for the Road with Steve Khan Twin House with Philip Catherine At Montreux with Eleventh House European Impressions Better Than Live with the Brubeck Brothers Standing Ovation: Solo Difference Splendid with Philip Catherine Return Tributaries with John Scofield, Joe Beck Live! with Philip Catherine, Joachim Kühn, Boléro The Larry Coryell/Michael Urbaniak Duo Scheherazade L'Oiseau de Feu, Petrouchka Le Sacre Du Printemps Facts of Life with Michał Urbaniak Just Like Being Born with Brian Keane A Quiet Day in Spring with Michał Urbaniak Comin' Home Together with Emily Remler Equipoise Dedicated to Bill Evans and Scott La Faro with Miroslav Vitous Toku Do Air Dancing Dragon Gate Visions in Blue: Coryell Plays Ravel & Gershwin Shining Hour American Odyssey Don Lanphere/Larry Coryell Twelve Frets to One Octave Live from Bahia Fallen Angel I'll Be Over You Sketches of Coryell Spaces Revisited Private Concert Cause and Effect with Steve Smith, Tom Coster, Monk, Trane, Miles & Me From the Ashes with L. Subramaniam New High The Coryells The Power Trio Live in Chicago Moonlight Whispers Count's Jam Band Reunion with Steve Marcus, Steve Smith, Kai Eckhardt Inner Urge Cedars of Avalon Three Guitars with Badi Assad, John Abercrombie Tricycles The Four Seasons with Kazuhito Yamashita Electric with Victor Bailey, Lenny White Traffic with Victor Bailey, Lenny White Laid Back & Blues Impressions: The New York Sessions Earthquake at the Avalon Larry Coryell with the Wide Hive Players Montgomery Duality with Kenny Drew Jr. The Lift Heavy Feel Barefoot Man: Sanpaku Seven Secrets with Eleventh House Last Swing with Ireland
  • ''Live at the Sugar Club''

As a member

The Free SpiritsOut of Sight and Sound Live at the Scene February 22nd 1967
Fuse OneFuse One
  • ''Ice''

As sideman

With Gary BurtonDuster Lofty Fake Anagram Gary Burton Quartet in Concert A Genuine Tong Funeral
With Paco de LuciaCastro Marín Entre Dos Aguas
With Teo MaceroImpressions of Charles Mingus Acoustical Suspension
With Leslie MándokiChildren of Hope Out of Key... with the Time
With Herbie MannMemphis Underground Memphis Two-Step Mellow
With Steve MarcusTomorrow Never Knows Count's Rock Band
With Charles MingusThree or Four Shades of Blues Me Myself An Eye Something Like a Bird
With Don SebeskyDon Sebesky & the Jazz Rock Syndrome The Distant Galaxy I Remember Bill
With L. SubramaniamBlossom Spanish Wave Mani & Co.
With Leon ThomasBlues and the Soulful Truth
With Michal UrbaniakFusion III Miles of Blue
With Kazumi WatanabeDogatana One for All
With others

Videography

L. Subramaniam Violin From the Heart – directed by Jean Henri Meunier Meeting of the Spirits /1979 – live performance in London featuring Coryell, John McLaughlin, and Paco de LuciaSuper Guitar Trio and Friends in Concert /1990 – live performance featuring Coryell, Al Di Meola, and Biréli LagrèneSuper Guitar Trio: Live in Montreux /1989 – live performance featuring Coryell, Al Di Meola, and Biréli LagrèneThree Guitars: Paris Concert /2004 – live performance featuring Coryell, Badi Assad, and John Abercrombie