Save 20% Off All New Releases!
- At August 14, 2012
- By Team 335
- In News
Receive 20% off the price of Tak Matsumoto’s Strings of my Soul, Larry Carlton’s Then & Now featuring Four Hands & a Heart Volume One or Larry Carlton’s Four Hands & a Heart Volume One.
Just enter “NewRelease-335Records” at the bottom of your cart page and click “Redeem Coupon”. It’s that simple!
Hurry, offer ends September 15th!
Tak Matsumoto – Strings of My Soul – $18.95
Larry Carlton – Then & Now Box Set including Four Hands & a Heart, Volume One – $47.95 (Box Set)
Larry Carlton – Four Hands & A Heart Volume One – $18.95
Review of Larry Carlton’s Show at Leicester Square Theatre
- At July 9, 2012
- By Team 335
- In News
Source: Jazz Journal
There is always a sense of anticipation seeing Larry Carlton perform live, where he can give full vent to his prodigious talents as a legendary – and I use the term advisedly – guitarist, composer and arranger. He first picked up a guitar aged six, and the rest is an unbroken history.
He was joined on stage at the Leicester Square Theatre by his son, Travis Carlton (bass), Gene Coye (drums), and Dennis Hamm (keyboards). They gelled well as a unit, although the balance and levels on the various keyboards were not always ideal. Carlton quietly walked on stage to tell us he never quite knows what he is going to play on a given night, but that he would “try all kinds of stuff” – exciting.
The set opened with two solo pieces on his trademark Gibson ES-335, the first a mood-setting slow ballad, then inviting the band members one by one to join him on stage, before ripping into an ensemble finger-snapping and driving funk groove. As aficionados would expect, the guitar work was by turns tasty, mean, incendiary and lyrical.
A jazz piece followed with melodic shades of Autumn Leaves. Carlton once described the blues as a big part of his spirit, and the evening was lit up by three very contrasting outings providing him the acres of space to explore his vast range of tone and voicing. Next up was Steely Dan’s Josie, a tune that bears so much of his inimitable stamp, before the first set closed with a slow-burning blues full of note-bending.
The venue had apparently required an interval, to the bemusement of the audience – and Carlton himself, who was on song and in full cry – and after the break, the tempo slackened perceptibly with a more pop-inflected Smiles And Smiles To Go” from the 1986 Alone/But Never Alone album. Another ballad, then a change of gear with the taut and springy Ultralight, Carlton’s final composition for Fourplay, whom he left in early 2010 after 12 years, to “delve further into his solo career”.
Carlton, conscious of his legacy, has always passed on his knowledge and experience to others, whether via his online guitar clinics – the audience seemed full of guitar players of a certain age – or here, where he endearingly decided upon an impromptu question and answer session with the audience. Some predictably impossible to answer questions followed, but he mentioned that his greatest early influences remain Coltrane and Miles, and of guitar players – Joe Pass.
He also said: “the music comes out emotionally, I’m not even aware of what’s coming out.” This is how I have always experienced his music – emotionally substantial, contained but free, and always very personal and direct. The evening closed with his signature Room 335. Alas, no encore as he had to be up at 5am to perform next evening in Bilbao. Even a 64-year-old on top form, peeling back the years, needs his sleep.
Larry Carlton International Tour Starts This Week!
- At June 27, 2012
- By Team 335
- In News
Review of Larry Carlton’s Latest Live Show
- At June 7, 2012
- By Team 335
- In News
Larry Carlton just announced a new international tour starting in July. Check out this review for an idea of what you might get out of the experience of attending one of those shows!
Source: “Larry Carlton reaffirms his spot among guitar legends” – Dallas Morning News
One thing that sets apart superb musicians like Larry Carlton from the merely good ones: Even on an off night, they’re still on.
The jazz-rock guitar legend warned fans at the Granada Theater on Friday night not too expect too much. For starters, he hadn’t touched a guitar in three weeks, and he fretted over what might happen to his fingers. “Anyone have a Band-Aid?” he joked.
He was also playing for the first time with Tim Lefebvre, who was filling in for Travis Carlton, the guitarist’s son and usual bassist. But neither the new player nor the tender digits detracted from a show that reaffirmed Carlton’s status as one the best guitarists most people never heard of — even though they’ve probably heard his work.
Like Lee Ritenour — another Fourplay alum who performed in the area recently — Carlton started out as an L.A. studio cat playing on scores of records in ’70s and ’80s, including Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall and the theme from Hill Street Blues. But he’s most revered for his work with Steely Dan: His tasty wailing on “Kid Charlemagne” inspired Rolling Stone to rank it as one of the “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.”
Sadly, Carlton skipped “Charlemagne” Friday, but he did play two other Steely Dan tunes: A superfast overhaul of “Peg,” and “Josie,” which he inexplicably introduced as “a song I hate to play.” Maybe so. But he performed it with supple gusto, bending notes and holding them until he’d arranged the perfect marriage of bebop and blues.
Carlton began the show alone, showing off a feathery touch on “Goodbye,” a ballad he dedicated to Les Paul. Staying in a mellow mood with a cover of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” he poured enough sweet soul into the tune you barely missed Teddy Pendergrass’ voice.
His quartet then joined him, and Carlton picked up the pace, slashing his way through jump blues and fiery fusion. Like Jeff Beck, he’s the rare guitarist who rocks hard without resorting to the clichés of hard rock.
He got subtle backing from keyboardist Dennis Hamm and drummer Gene Coye. And bass ace Lefebvre did an admirable job for his first night with the band, although he had trouble with the ’50s classic “Sleep Walk” after a fan shouted a request for it.
But the backing band was almost an afterthought in a show that was basically an extended 90-minute guitar solo. That might sound unappetizing to anyone but guitar fanatics. But in Carlton’s nimble hands, it was one really long guitar solo well worth hearing.
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