THE CORYELLS

Ever dream of Daddy Larry playing with sonny Murali and younger sonny Julian on the same album? Unsurprisingly called The Coryells, this album is an acoustic guitar fiesta, with old pal Alphonse Mouzon on percussions and Torff on contrabass, the latter two playing on less than half the tracks. Family snapshot on the rfront cover, full line-up on the back booklet and just the instruments on the back cover, one can't say the they pushed the family concept far enough.

While you'd expect LC to revisit many jazz standards, you're only faced with the umpteenth version of Mingus' Pork Pie Hat, an Al Green cover and a Muddy Waters Blues, the rest being Eleventh House tracks (three including Mouzon's Funky Waltz), and three more LC but also three tracks from sonny Julian and one from Murali. The latter also sings (not well IMHO) but daddy's voice was better at that age. Apart from the three-part suite opening the album, one has to wait until the monster Zimbabwe track and its spine- tingling successor, the 11th house Low-Lee-Tah. Then you won't find much more interesting stuff, until the fabulous Funky Waltz with all three Coryell taking turns at lead. Transparence is another winner, the only real good pure guitar track (no bass & perc). And Somebody is the only track where Bro Muraly finally sings better.

While I haven't really been a fan of LC's later career, this present album is one of the more interesting ones, even if it won't come to the heels of most album of his 70's, period which is most appropriate for progheads to discover LC's career.

The first family effort by Coryells is mainly a laid-back effort save for the first "Sentenza del core" where the three join forces on three acoustic guitars. Besides that we have an interesting male voice, possibly by one of the young Coryells. The vocal makes this album one of the most interesting vocal CDs by Coryell (there weren't many). In fact, it's often more interesting than the lazy atmospheric guitar playing that is not so typical for Coryell albums. Those expecting post-bop, fusion or typical acoustic music by Coryell will be disappointed since this is prevailingly a mixture of easy-going acoustic and sung songs without much substance. The two Eleventh House covers are OK but not something you would want to hear multiple times after you've heard the original. Another problem of this album is its length considering the lower material quality.

Good for Coryell completionists or fans of laid-back acoustic music.