Larry Coryell – “Fallen Angel” (1993)

There is probably no such thing as a “great” Larry Coryell album. Even on his better records, the guitarist proved uneven, inconsistent or, more often than not, unable to sustain interest over a full LP. Worse, a bad vocal always threatened to wipe out whatever an otherwise decent Coryell record might promise.

Fallen Angel is just such a record. It’s got its highs and lows. But here is, perhaps, one of the guitarist’s most notable, if not also more notorious outings.

Coryell is chiefly remembered for the funk fusion of his Eleventh House records and the all-star Spaces (with Chick Corea and fellow guitarist John McLaughlin) – all from the early seventies. After being dubbed “The Godfather of Fusion,” Coryell remade himself in the eighties as a straight-ahead jazz standard-bearer on a series of records for the Muse and HighNote labels.

To these ears, Coryell always sounded better on other people’s records. For example, Coryell is heard to superb effect on Chico Hamilton’s “Thoughts” (1966), Chico O’Farrill’s “Green Moss” (1966), Don Sebesky’s “The Word” and “Guruvin” (both 1968, the latter on electric sitar[!]), Wolfgang Dauner’s “Tuning Spread” and “Yin” (both 1972), the little-known and under-revered Mysterious Flying Orchestra’s “Improvisational Rondo for Saxophone and Guitar” (1977), Miles Davis’ Miles-less “Miss Last Summer” (1978) and Joey DeFrancesco’s “JLJ Blues” (2012).

By the early nineties, Coryell was actively touring and recording in a variety of styles for a bevy of independent labels. He never found the renown or the crossover success of his hero and mentor, Wes Montgomery, or his friend and contemporary, George Benson.

Then, out of the blue, producer Creed Taylor – who had much to do with making stars of Montgomery and Benson – recruited Coryell to record and film¹ a concert of Brazilian music in Brazil. The resulting album was the largely re-recorded Live in Bahia, Coryell’s 1992 CTI debut. But it was not Coryell’s first scrape with CTI.

According to the guitarist’s 2007 autobiography, “Improvising: My Life in Music,” Coryell pitched his 1969 solo debut, Lady Coryell, to Creed Taylor, who, not surprisingly, turned it down. The album was shortly thereafter picked up by Vanguard, where Coryell spent much of the next decade, while recording for other labels such as Flying Dutchman, Arista, Atlantic and Elektra.

Coryell and Taylor’s paths wouldn’t cross again until CTI’s 1980 all-star date Fuse One. While Coryell didn’t factor on CTI’s 1981 Fuse One follow-up, Silk, the guitarist is prominent on the collective’s second – and mostly wonderful – David Matthews-led sequel, Ice, first issued in 1984. Coryell also, surprisingly, took several nice turns on pianist Roland Hanna’s 1982 CTI album Gershwin Carmichael Cats.²

Fallen Angel was the 1993 CTI follow-up to Live in Bahia and the second of Coryell’s three increasingly commercial discs for the label. Although Coryell himself never thought much of his CTI discs, Fallen Angel is among the guitarist’s best, most cohesive discs and ranks high with Live in Bahia among the best of the late-period CTI CDs. But it, too, is – at best – a mixed blessing.

II.

This is a disc that was born in more controversy than is typical for the average jazz record, or even the sublimely well-crafted CTI album.

First, producer Creed Taylor, arranger Don Sebesky (in his first appearance on CTI since Roland Hanna’s 1982 Gershwin Carmichael Cats and notably, his last) and engineer Rudy Van Gelder conspired to build a jazz disc without any sort of a rhythm section. Sebesky “programmed” a bank of synthesizers to fill this void – an innovative (and cheaper) way to make jazz sound and feel contemporary. To my knowledge, Taylor had only done this one time before: on keyboardist Roger Kellaway’s 1984 album Creation.

The effort to minimize here is, no doubt, to keep costs down. But Taylor, known for such painstakingly multitracked classics as Lambert Hendricks & Ross’ Sing a Song of Basie (1959) and Bill Evans’ Conversations with Myself (1963), was a wizard in the studios and was more than capable of pulling this off.

Second – and most remarkably, of all – the great Wes Montgomery, who died in 1967, makes a surprise guest appearance on this 1993 disc. This may not sound like a big deal in the heady days of hip-hoppers sampling older jazz, particularly from the absolutely sample-able CTI catalog. But there is a bit more here than meets the ear.

After the surprising success of the 1991 “virtual duet” singer Natalie Cole shared with her long-deceased father on “Unforgettable,” Creed Taylor made a daring proposal to Larry Coryell: a “digital duet” with Wes Montgomery on the guitarist’s iconic “Bumpin’ on Sunset.” Originally appearing on the 1966 Taylor-produced Tequila, Montgomery’s bewitching original featured Ron Carter on bass and Grady Tate on drums in a superbly compatible arrangement by Claus Ogerman.

Coryell wrote in his autobiography that “Creed apparently still owned the master to that track, and the original had been on his CTI label when it was a hit in the ‘60s.” That’s not quite true. While Taylor may have had a copy of the master, he certainly did not own it. The song’s original label, Verve, since acquired by Universal Music, was the real owner. The original was not on the CTI label.

Fallen Angel awkwardly recasts the song as “(Angel on Sunset) Bumpin’ on Sunset,” but also denies credit to both Carter and Tate for their contributions. Indeed, while Montgomery’s song gets a publishing credit (as was proper for a “sample”), Universal Music was not credited and, likely, not consulted for the use of the song here. It seems that if Universal knew anything about this, however, they chose to do nothing about it.

Here, Coryell does little more than add Sebesky-like touches of counterpoint on echo-y acoustic guitar. Sebesky himself adds some piano and synth-string washes, giving the song a strangely cantina vibe. The song takes off, though, when Coryell switches to electric guitar and seemingly spars with Wes, as though Wes had overdubbed himself.

”Initially, I did not want to do this,” Coryell later wrote, “thinking it would be sacrilegious to mess with anybody else.” But Coryell was eventually swayed by the success of the Coles’ “Unforgettable” and fellow guitarist Lee Ritenour’s then-recent tribute to Montgomery, the stellar Wes Bound (which, notably, does not include “Bumpin’ on Sunset”).

Several years later, after this record had long-since been forgotten, guitarist Pat Metheny brought the issue back into the light in a sort of rant on his website:

“This type of musical necrophilia,” Metheny wrote, “the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers – was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on “Unforgettable” a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him – and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.

The two guitarists eventually made up with one another. But there is a real sense that Coryell truly regretted letting Taylor talk him in to this “musical necrophilia” with a hero of his. Coryell would come back to “Bumpin’ on Sunset,” with just his own trio on The Power Trio – Live in Chicago (2003) and again on Aurora Coryellis (2015).

III.

“Bumpin’ on Sunset” set the tone for much of what Fallen Angel is all about: Not a tribute to Wes Montgomery or the artist whose name is on the cover, but rather a “greatest hits” of the producer, Creed Taylor, himself.

The disc’s opener, Marvin Gaye’s timeless “Inner City Blues,” harks back to saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr.’s first CTI-Kudu single and the title track to his 1971 solo debut. Here, Sebesky gives the song a genuinely engaging techno turn, allowing the guitarist to get down and funky on amplified acoustic guitar. Klyde Jones and Jeanie Bryson offer a warm, welcome vocal. The angelic choir approach offers a stirring counterpoint to Coryell’s spiky blues-rock interjections.

The disc’s ninth track, ”Thus Spoke Z,” is a clever techno update of Richard Strauss classic “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” which, of course, Deodato spun into CTI’s biggest hit in 1973. Deodato’s diabolically clever version, also known simply as “2001,” after Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film, spawned dozens of knock-offs in the mid-seventies. It was long past due for an a stirring update such as this.³

Here, Sebesky crafts an especially funky backdrop (it might well be titled “Thus Spoke S”), allowing Coryell and pianist Mulgrew Miller (1955-2013) – who frankly sounds an awful lot like Bob James here – to spar to great effect. Indeed, “Z” offers some of Coryell’s tastiest playing on the entire disc.

For the song’s supremely effective outro, Coryell – after engineer Rudy Van Gelder, during the recording, mentioned to him something about Thelonious Monk – quoted Monk’s “Misterioso.” But what this listener hears here is a nod, instead, to Gary McFarland’s 1968 “Long Live the King.”

The jazz standard “Stardust” gets a brief, but beautiful nod by Coryell on solo guitar. The song had previously been visited – in a sort of Brazilian version – by Taylor, Sebesky and Coryell on pianist Roland Hanna’s 1982 CTI album Gershwin Carmichael Cats. Coryell had himself recorded the tune at the Van Gelder studio in 1992 with trumpeter Jack Walrath on an album called Out of the Tradition. Much more should have been made of this. But…

”Stardust” leads here into an unusual take on Erroll Garner’s “Misty.” Sebesky ill-advisedly sets the tune to a reggae-lite backdrop, likely in an effort to contemporize the tune. It’s an odd choice, particularly in this reading. Mulgrew Miller’s brief Bob James-like flourishes even suggest this track could have been an outtake from a Bob James album of the period. “Misty” was no doubt a concession to the then-popular “NAC” or Smooth Jazz market of the day. But no one at CTI or Smooth Jazz radio made anything of it.

Fallen Angel’s other nods to the contemporary-music market include “Never Never,” the disc’s lone single, and “Fallen,” both featuring Klyde Jones’ vocals and smoothie saxophonist Richard Elliott. Coryell practically disappears on both tunes, making the song’s inclusions too obviously gimmicky attempts at commercialization.

“Fallen,” however, would have made a much better single choice, with or without Larry Coryell’s name. The song, written by Lauren Wood (a.k.a. “Chunky”), was first recorded in 1979 by Nicolette Larson and had recently staged a comeback as Wood’s 1982 recording of the song was prominently featured on the 1990 hit soundtrack for Pretty Woman. This version, too, could have been a contender.

IV.

While the above pieces are likely Fallen Angel’s better-known – or more notorious – pieces, the remaining half of the disc is where Coryell comes into his own on his own disc. That these tracks comprise roughly the bulk of the second half of the disc suggests the album may have fared better with slightly different programming or, better yet, a separate disc.

Coryell first waxes eloquently on Sebesky’s lovely “I Remember Bill,” offering a nuanced reading that soars lovingly over Sebesky’s subtle strings. Named for pianist Bill Evans – who, surprisingly, never worked with Don Sebesky – and riffing off Sebesky’s earlier “I Remember Wes” (a feature for George Benson), “I Remember Bill” was first waxed for Stanley Turrentine’s Sebeksky-arranged disc If I Could (1993).

I say “first” only because Turrentine’s disc, which was recorded in May 1993, was issued only a few weeks before Coryell’s otherwise undated recording. Sebesky would later record the Evans remembrance on his own 1998 disc-length tribute to the pianist, I Remember Bill – A Tribute to Bill Evans, a disc that features contributions from Larry Coryell on a number of tracks other than that particular song.

Coryell switches to acoustic guitar for the haunting “Pieta,” where he and pianist and fellow CTI recording artist Ted Rosenthal trade fours. “Pieta” is based on Rachmaninoff’s 1915 wordless romance “Vocalise,” which Sebesky first presented as a feature for Milt Jackson and Paul Desmond on his 1973 CTI album Giant Box – remarkably the first and nearly only jazz take of the tune.

Strangely buried in the set list, “Pieta” is among Sebesky’s signature best “jazz classics,” ranking right up there with Jim Hall’s 1975 “Concierto de Aranjuez” (with Chet Baker and Paul Desmond) and in accord with such melancholy Spanish-inflected numbers as his own “El Morro” (notably the 1977 Chet Baker version).

In another nod to Bill Evans – this time specifically to the 1963 landmark Creed Taylor production Conversations with Myself – Coryell beautifully overdubs himself on “Stella by Starlight.” Coryell had previously recorded the tune with Miroslav Vitous on a 1987 Bill Evans-Scott La Faro tribute album. Here, Coryell claims “Stella” as a guitarist’s tune, dressing the lady in shades of Count Basie guitarist Freddie Green and Johnny Smith.

Coryell overdubs himself again on the all-too brief “Westerley Wind,” this time, however, alluding again to the guitarist in the title. The remaining Coryell originals, oddly tacked on at the end of this 52-minute program, are the quirky yet playful “Monk’s Corner” (again featuring Rosenthal) and the evocative “The Moors.”

V.

Fallen Angel was released in October 1993 to relatively little notice. Perhaps, though, it wasn’t so surprising after all. Maybe it was the Larry Coryell album no one was waiting for. Coryell, who was 50 years old at the time, was likely past his prime for crossover success. And Creed Taylor probably overcooked this one, throwing a bit too much in to the mix to make it palatable for most. Still, Fallen Angel has much to recommend it.

“Most of us would agree,” wrote the San Francisco-based music tip-sheet The Gavin Report in 1993, “that, generally, Larry Coryell sits on the more esoteric side of the jazz guitar spectrum, and even though Fallen Angel is, putting it mildly, an about-face, it’s not a direction Coryell has taken without deep contemplation. By working with Don Sebesky and Creed Taylor, both exquisite purveyors of commercial jazz, Coryell made [the disc] a direct musical statement as opposed to another happy sax record.”

Agreed. Still, a direct musical statement was not what people wanted in 1993. Jazz journal Downbeat‘s scribe Dan Oulette awarded the disc a mere two-and-a-half stars.⁴ Almost no one else bothered.

The disc’s “happy sax” single, “Never Never” – paired with what should have been at least one of the album’s single releases, “Thus Spoke Z” – failed to garner any airplay. Coryell said, however, that New York-area stations picked up on “Angel on Sunset,” attracting initial positive attention to the album. But no one really complained about it until years later, when, as Coryell put it, “Pat Metheny…really slammed me for doing the Wes thing.”

The legendary Brazilian guitarist and composer Luiz Bonfá (1922-2001) – who factors on two 1963 albums produced by Creed Taylor, Luiz Bonfá Plays And Sings Bossa Nova and the collaborative album with Stan Getz Jazz Samba Encore! – was sufficiently impressed by Fallen Angel to write “Samblues for Mr. Coryell” for the 1997 Arnaldo DeSouteiro-produced disc by the enchanting Brazilian chanteuse Ithamara Koorax, Almost in Love – in a performance that featured Bonfá in performance with Larry Coryell himself.

Coryell would go on to appear on two tracks from the next CTI album, saxophonist Donald Harrison’s The Power of Cool (1994). Then, in 1995, the guitarist’s third and final CTI album appeared, the blatantly commercial and ultimately prophetic I’ll Be Over You (yes, the Toto song), especially notable for “Nightshade,” a terrific pairing of Coryell with returning CTI All Star Grover Washington, Jr. and, apparently, a lot of unpaid bills.

Several of Coryell’s pieces from Fallen Angel (and “Nightshade”) were sampled by a CTI collective dubbed Thus Spoke Z (a nom de music for Creed Taylor’s son, John) for the 1996 “acid jazz” disc Evolution – curiously excluding the Fallen Angel song “Thus Spoke Z” or any samples of it.

Coryell would reunite with Sebesky as a featured soloist on the arranger’s lovely 1998 disc I Remember Bill – A Tribute to Bill Evans. It would be their final foray together.

From this point forward, CTI Records would struggle to survive, issuing a scant few discs that climaxed with the CTI All Stars date Montreux Jazz Festival 2009, released (in Japan only) in 2010. Coryell went on to perform and record prolifically until his death in 2017. Indeed, his first post-CTI album, Sketches of Coryell, seemed inspired by the lessons he learned while at CTI. But even the more consistent Sketches of Coryell failed to find much of an audience.

Three decades later – and far removed from the days when smooth jazz battled for significance with the so-called “Young Lions” – this altogether imperfect disc deserves consideration for all it attempts. Fallen Angel is as much a worthy tribute to Creed Taylor’s decades-long genius and offers plenty of good playing from Larry Coryell.

Endnotes:

1. CTProduced’s Mark Cathcart posted the Live in Bahia LaserDisc on YouTube, here. ↩︎
2. It should be noted that “Skylark,” with Coryell, on the Gershwin Carmichael Cats disc was repurposed and newly overdubbed for the 1992 CTI Jim Hall disc Youkali, with Coryell edited out. ↩︎
3. Creed Taylor also had arranger David Matthews overdub the “2001” theme atop George Benson’s live take on “Summertime” for a 12-inch disc in 1976. ↩︎
4. DownBeat, January 1994, p. 45. ↩︎