OFFERING

4.5 stars really!!!

After the splendid Barefoot Boy, would Larry Coryell's troupes manage to follow it up as brilliantly with Offering?? Certainly LC didn't feel the need to change a winning team, so he also kept producer Weiss. With a semi-psych artwork, you'd guess this album would allow for looser themes, but actually, quite the opposite, this is a collection of much tighter tracks.

Sonically the album is fairly different (partly a production thing), and you "get" this right away in the album's longest track, Foreplay, which as the title indicates is only a warm up, with everyone getting a change to loosen up the fingers. Ruminations is somewhat more of a straighter jazz tune, but flirting constantly with dissonance, this is probably the album's hardest tune to play. The much easier Scotland I is more in the style of the previous BB or Nucleus-type of fusion.

The flipside starts on the drummer Wilkinson title track, a red-hot mid-tempo track taking the usual Bronson-Wilkinson Hendrix-trio, but with LC, Mandel and Markus up front, the mood is definitely fusion- esque and finishing up at 100 MPH. Great stuff. A rather solid change of pace with the ultra-slow Meditation track, which tends to bore the listener. The closing 8-mins Beggar's Chant is another pure beauty, a mid-tempo torrid blister on your speaker cones that will melt them down would the track last longer.

Although not quite as flawless as BB (which wasn't either due to a lengthy drum solo), Offering is an awesome album that every proghead should own.

I feel that the best album Larry released was "Barefoot Boy" and this particular album "Offering" was released the following year in 1972. Not nearly as good in my opinion but the joy for me with this recording is just listening to the impressive instrumental work. A five piece band of electric piano, guitar, drums, bass and soprano sax and I admit I'm not the biggest fan of soprano sax but this album certainly deserves the 4 stars I'm giving it. I found it interesting as well that Larry used two songs from Jazz keyboardist Doug Davis. Larry and the drummer composed the rest.

"Foreplay" opens with some distortion as a beat and keys kick in followed by sax. An uptempo Fusion track with the soprano sax playing over top until the guitar takes over around 3 minutes. It settles back around 6 minutes although it's still uptempo. The sax is back before 8 minutes to end it. "Ruminations" is led by sax and drums early but electric piano and bass help out here as well. Some nice drum work just before a minute as it turns quite jazzy, especially the piano and bass. The guitar arrives ripping it up as it trades off with the sax until they both light it up.

"Scotland I" opens with different sounds coming and going until around 1 1/2 minutes when outbursts start to come and go. An impressive instrumental display. It calms right down late. "Offering" has intricate drumming and guitar with electric piano and bass. I like this a lot. Coryell starts to light it up after a minute then it's the sax turn after 3 minutes. A great track.

"The Meditation Of November 8th" is the one track I can't get into. It's very relaxed with smooth sax, picked guitar and bass to start. It does pick up some before 2 minutes but I'm not into this one. "Beggar's Chant" features the sax playing over the electric piano, bass and drums. The guitar joins in as it builds. Check out the fuzz-wah electric piano! The guitar starts to solo after 4 minutes.

One Of Larry's better albums for sure, at least in his top five counting his work with ELEVENTH HOUSE.