--=[ Larry Carlton ]=--

Larry Carlton - Deep Into It [2001]

Thirty years ago, when Larry Carlton recorded the original version of "Put It Where You Want It," he was the newest member of the legendary The Crusaders. On "Deep into It," featuring a long jamming remake of that classic tune, the guitarist is welcoming a new sax voice into the smooth-jazz fold, Chris Potter, heretofore known for his daring jazz work as a leader and with the Dave Holland Quintet. While Carlton doesn't come close to meeting Potter halfway on the acoustic/smooth-jazz axis, the guitarist, as the title suggests, does dig a bit deeper into the smooth-jazz harmonic and rhythmic framework. Potter sounds as comfortable playing here as he does playing more adventurous music. His tone has a grittier edge than most smooth-jazz players, but it's made palatable by Carlton's familiar warm guitar sound. Programmers Carl Burnett and Rex Rideout sparkle on the title track, "Morning Magic," and "Don't Break My Heart," while the tracks closest to the smooth-jazz center feature sax man Kirk Whalum or co producer Paul Brown as composer and/or arranger, including a version of the Eagles' beautiful song, "I Can't Tell You Why," featuring vocalist Shai.

















Larry Carlton - Collection [1990]


Carlton's take on The Doobie Brothers Minute by Minute is a Pure Gem.I really dig his Guitar work. Others I'd give honorable mention to are "Nite Crawler" which you can definitely enjoy while cruising, and also the remake of "Tequila" which Larry excellently made his own. This collection showed to me that Larry Carlton is absolutely quality jazz entertainment.The best track is "Sleepwalk" which shows you just what great phrasing the guy has, probably one of the hardest things for any musician to achieve is good phrasing and LC achieves this with ease.

















Larry Carlton - Larry Carlton [1978]

In any genre of music it certainly seems that session ace,Crusaders member and guitar extrodinaire Larry Carlton was pretty much on the fast track to becomming one of the finest guitarists in the decade.This particular album is Steely Dan-ish jazz-rock grooves of the first degree-think along the lines of Dan's 'Aja' album without Becker and Fagan.Not surprising since the musicians are basically the same.

Musically speaking every song on the album stands out.The Steely Dan like pop og "Room 335" and "Where Did You Come From" and the funky "I Apologize" (the latter two featuring the sweet voice of William 'Smitty' Smith) are extraordinarily strong tunes-all feature top notch songwriting and straight into the pocket playing.Of course Mr.Carlton throws down a deeply grooving cover of the Crusaders "Night Crawler" for good measure,sort of a tribute to the band he's now left.And he has a time for slightly more traditional fusion jam "Rio Samba" and the shuffling rock n' roll of"Don't Give It Up",perhaps a major highlight of the album of many-ending the album on the low note with the slower "(It Was) Only Yesterday)".
Having worked with Steely Dan,The Crusaders and just about every pop act during that era Larry Carlton certainly knew how to work a groove to death,even in short time frames.The sad truth is this album was marketed very incorrectly because if this album was marketed to fans of Jeff Beck,Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers this would have taken off.Instead this funk-rock-fusion extravaganza was marketed to a jazz artists and condemned accordingly more then likely.That is a pitty because Larry ROCKS (just like Hendrix,Beck and Becker lol) and so does this album!


All track info is in the comment section..