A Feast of Death

Of all living authors, my favorite is without doubt James Ellroy. Sprawling epic novels based on terse, tense text. He has a profound message; I often wonder if it can be seen behind his macho posing. Ellroy has made himself the subject of any conversation about his writings to the degree that Tom Wolfe or Kurt Vonnegut did; he dominates American literature today. But there seems to be a hidden agenda in Ellroy's writings that he does his damnest to keep from the public.

Without a doubt, Ellroy has one of the most famous origin stories ever for a writer. At around the age of ten, with divorced parents, he came home to his mother's house to find out that she had been murdered. It was a shock for the kid. To make things worse, a newspaper photographer shot a picture of him trying to make a sandwich while he was coping with the news.

It was a seminal moment in his life; it took over twenty years for him to move past that trouble. Moving in with his father, becoming a lost child, morphing into a rather nasty young peeping tom, a disastrous attempt at joining the military; all bad turns. He tells the story repeatedly, even turning it, as well as the search for his mother's killer - it is still an unsolved homicide - into a couple of non-fiction books, one of which was the New York Times' Book of the Year.

Ellroy became a crime obsessed creep, eventually turning to drugs and alcohol. His life washed up, both parents dead, it wasn't until he was nearly 30 that he sobered up, turning his life around. He began writing crime fiction to feed the paperback boom. Interestingly, by his second novel, he was starting to create some of the characters that wound up in his L.A. Quartet, although those were still five years away.

It took six novels for James Ellroy to be able to stop working as a caddy in a country club, becoming a full time author. He was stumbling toward a style, but it wasn't there yet, except that he almost only wrote about the City of Lost Angels, Los Angeles. He didn't really get into his signature neo-noir mode until his seventh novel, 'The Black Dahlia'. It was here that Ellroy's obsessions came together and produced his first masterpiece.

His mother and the unsolved mutilation of a Hollywood party girl meld into a story told as a modern hard boiled detective novel. The protagonists are obsessed, the killers are obsessed. It is told in an obsessive style. It catapulted Ellroy onto the top of the crime fiction field. The following is the oldest video of James that I could find; he has the 'Demon Dog of American Fiction' and the dog howl down, but he is still soft spoken.

With 'The Big Nowhere', the canvas starts to expand. There had been a revival of film noir in the mid 1970s, with 'Chinatown' and a couple of Phillip Marlowe movies starring Robert Mitchum, among others. No one had touched the Red Scare, especially from the point of view of law enforcement working for political advancement. All the pieces were suddenly in place for Ellroy to become a major literary figure.

With 'L.A. Confidential' he did not miss his chance at the big time. Added elements, such as using the lowest forms of writing, such as scandal rag verbiage, turning it into pure poetry, made this a breakout best seller that was soon turned into a successful motion picture. Themes were starting to come into focus, particularly how all our ancestors were really vile and evil under that home spun exterior. Every motivation is doubtful, every outcome bad. The building block of the Ellroy universe was corruption; it was everywhere, and it was growing all the time.

'White Jazz' finished up the L.A. Quartet, establishing Ellroy as a literary force to be reckoned with. His public persona was in place; loud, brash, full of himself to a comical degree. Matched with his literary style, it was easy to consider him a right wing throwback from an earlier age. He wasn't the slightest bit hesitant to push this impression on the viewer, as seen below.

It is hard to tell when he's trying to be funny or trying to be shocking. The language in his novels is accurate for the times, as are the attitudes. I should know; I was alive for part of the time, I heard much worse as a child. Even my own father, who was tolerant of African Americans and Puerto Ricans at a time when most of his contemporaries weren't, would go off on Jews in a nanosecond. We all have prejudices, but they may be invisible in the moment. Time will show us all to be bigots of one stripe or another.

His career took off like a rocket in the mid 1990s, between a series of interconnected epics novels and a hit movie, fed by a public persona that was extremely confrontational. Ellroy went out of his way to look like Nazi bureaucrat, having nothing to do with the modern world - no computer, no cell phone, no social media - becoming a hit on the public appearance circuit. He wrote his funniest story, the novella 'Dick Contino's Blues', a wild mix of real people and 1950s exploitation movie plot, told entirely in 'Hush Hush' language, in 1994. Then he put that style aside and got serious.

The 'Underworld USA' trilogy is by far the best series of books that I have read in my life, bar none. They are brilliant, covering the hidden history of the United States from 1958 to 1972, terrible men doing horrible things while feeling entirely justified. It was a huge change for Ellroy, who had made his reputation from the two things that he left behind in these novels;  Los Angeles in the film noir era. What he found was the highest form of literature formed from the lowest elements of culture.

'American Tabloid', a kick to the nuts for over 600 pages, was the New York Time Book of the Year. The very next year, he duplicated the feat with a non-fiction book, the very confessional 'My Dark Places'. He treats his own life as harshly, perhaps even more so, than he treats anyone in his novels. The book is a long rumination over the death of his mother as he tries to solve her murder, in the process reconnecting with a mother that he had felt abandoned by. It is a heartbreaking confession of guilt, and it begins to show the true Ellroy beneath the bluster.

All the above is a long introduction to the specific book that I want to discuss, the second of the 'Underworld USA' novels, 'The Cold Six Thousand.' It suffered what all middle books in trilogies suffer, the mid-point letdown. Remember 'The Two Towers'? Ellroy's novel garnered praise and sold as well, but it wasn't as thrilling. 'American Tabloid'  was a daring book; by the second or third chapter, you knew that the conclusion would be the assassination of JFK. You wanted to see how it unfolded, you couldn't believe the audacity of the author, bringing in so many historical figures into his narrative.

'The Cold Six Thousand' has to do that same trick twice, with both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. Ellroy doesn't even focus on the murders that much; they feel inevitable as mobsters and government figures simply dispose of inconvenient public figures, knowing that they will get away with murder again. The canvas goes Panavision, large parts of the action taking place in Vietnam, Klan klonklaves in the Deep South, and most especially in Las Vegas. It is bad people getting involved in bad things on a Biblical scale.

There is also something else going on, hidden behind the casual racism and violence. Ellroy is coming out as a closet liberal, even a feminist. As is typical of his bigger novels, there are three strong but misguided men at the heart of the plot. They are pawns in the game of bigger men, instruments used to make things happen, lied to, clueless to the consequences of their actions. It is the three women in the book who are smarter, eventually gaining control of their destiny, something entirely beyond the intelligence of the males.

When you finally get to the last novel - it took fourteen years for Ellroy to finish these three, they are the thickest, most dense prose that I have ever encountered - it may occur to the reader that the real protagonist of the 21,500 page story is J. Edgar Hoover, the only character deeply involved in all the books. I'm old enough to remember Hoover; there was a weekly television series about the FBI playing for my entire childhood, exactly the kind of propaganda bullshit that his evil genius specialized in. He doesn't move the plot. Instead, he is the ultimate voyeur, and the trilogy is really a descent into his senility. It's not pretty, but it is Shakespearian.

In fact, the last great plot twist in this epic concerns a well-known rumor at the time, the secret files that Hoover used to keep himself in power well after mandatory retirement age. The entire world that Ellroy creates is place of comprehensive spying and record keeping, down to the barrage of reports and telephone transcripts that dot the three books. After Hoover's death, the great mystery was; where were the secret files J. Edgar kept on virtually everybody? While it provides a pat ending for the Clint Eastwood documentary, it was used in American Exploitation cinema decades earlier.

That's the key to James Ellroy's art; using exploitation elements and managing to turn them into something greater, a tapestry of our past that is not nice, but accurate. After all, we are a nation built on slavery and exploitation, the twin original sins that have corrupted out body politics to this day. Watching the news every day over this long summer has been like reliving my youth, with Watergate, the fall of Saigon, a nation on the brink of cultural collapse. My memory of the so-called Summer of Love was of people screaming hate in each other's face, not a momentary utopia to be viewed with nostalgia.

The paradox of human existence is that great art comes from troubled times. The period of 'Underworld USA' became, to use a phrase of Ellroy's, a 'shit storm.' We are living in similarly cloudy times. I wonder what new art will reflect it. Meanwhile, here is a long but excellent documentary, 'James Ellroy's Feast of Death', that deals with some of the themes explored here. I urge you to watch. History always repeats.

Chaos By Design

'The Assassination Bureau' is a very interesting British movie from 1968, with ties to Jack London, Joseph Conrad, and even James Bond. A light and frothy movie with a delightful art nouveau style, it was made just as the English film industry was about to fall apart. Some of that it is reflected in the movie; more on that later. While a dark comedy, it concerns a very important part of history from which the contemporary world might learn important lessons. Bottom line, we have a very entertaining movie with an interesting back story that represents a fascinating bit of world history.

Political action world wide took a violent turn starting in 1881, with the assassination of US President Garfield and Russian Tsar Alexander II. For the next thirty to forty years, random violence of the type that we have become immune to in the modern world racked both the US and Europe. Italy, France, and especially Spain seemed to be prone to political violence, often by anarchists. In 1901, President McKinley was shot to death by a self-proclaimed anarchist in Buffalo, NY.

The first major work of literary merit written in response to the proliferation of violence was written by Joseph Conrad. Conrad was Polish by birth, learning to read and write English as an adult. His early work, such as 'Heart of Darkness' and 'Lord Jim' are highly thought of but didn't sell. Later works, like 'The Arrow of Gold' and The Rescue', sold like hot cakes but don't have much of a reputation today. Between those periods, Conrad wrote a couple of political novels, 'The Secret Agent' and 'Under Western Eyes'.

'The Secret Agent' from 1906 coined the tern 'secret agent', although the person involved is a far cry from the debonair version of the 1960s and beyond. The plot of the novel is about an agent provocateur planted in a cell of anarchists who is urged to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. Things don't go as planned. The outcome is grim; that seems to be the point of the book, to made violent political action unappealing. It was made into a successful British film in 1936 by Alfred Hitchcock called 'Sabotage' (to confuse things, there is a Hitchcock movie called 'Secret Agent' but it is completely different). 

Jack London was the most successful American author immediately after the death of Mark Twain. A rags to riches story, London was known mostly as a masculine outdoorsman, writer of 'Call of the Wild' and 'White Fang'. London was much more complicated than that, writing everything from science fiction to political muckraking non-fiction. Part of the San Francisco Bohemian group, he was also into wife swapping, massive quantities of alcohol, and taking drugs, particularly morphine and strychnine. Getting high from strychnine is like getting drunk on gasoline; you might accomplish the task, but the side effects are horrific.

Before committing suicide - or dying of alcoholism - or dying of strychnine poisoning (take your pick, there's a controversy here), London bought a plot idea from his good friend and fellow socialist, Upton Sinclair. Starting on the novel, he abandoned it after 20,000 words, having trouble with the ending. Many years after his death, the book was finished in a more humorous way by Robert L. Fish in 1963. It is minor London but still interesting, especially in relations to the politics of London's times.

The plot of the novel concerns a group who will commit assassinations for money, but only if the subject is corrupt and worthy of execution. The organization itself has been corrupted, and the leader is contracted to kill himself. The entire plot takes place in America among the Captains of Industry and other wealthy people. Considering the Haymaker Riots and other strings of Anarchist events shocking the nation at the time, it seems to be a way of making sense of chaos by creating a superstructure responsible for the chaos.

Shortly after it's very belated appearance, it was made into a major motion picture by producer Michael Relph, with Basil Dearden, a distinguished director, at the helm. Shortened to 'The Assassination Bureau', it improves upon the plot, moving the action to the same time period but in Europe, where intra-country intrigue and espionage add excitement, while changing the character of the journalist into a woman. Both greatly enhance the story, but the real strength in the film is definitely the casting.

Diana Riggs is at her most attractive, right after her stint in 'The Avengers, immediately before 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. The man who played the villain in the later, Telly Savalas, the best Blofeld by far, also has a major part. The male lead is Oliver Reed at his smirking best, dangerous but attractive, before he disappeared into alcoholism. After all, this was a man who publicly stated that his goal in life was to drain every bar dry that he ever set foot in.

The movie is a quality production most of the time, a steam punk version of James Bond, art Nouveau hi jinx running across turn-of-the-century Europe. True, Telly Savalas is completely unconvincing as a Lord, not even trying for an English accent. But he is so charming, in command of the role, that it doesn't matter. Reed strikes the perfect balance between seductive and deadly as the head of the Bureau, a man who must be dangerous yet still alluring. There is also a cast of quality actors and actresses assuming every European nationality in the most non-politically correct way.

The movie sets up the complicated politics of a powder keg Europe quickly and amusingly, then jumps right into the dilemma of the plot. This is not a movie that goes in a straight line; it is up to the charm and acting skills of the cast. Diana Riggs in particular, to sell it to the audience. Miss Riggs must be sexy still Victorian, prim but progressive. She is more than up to the task as a woman suffragette trying to make it as a journalist.

There is also great chemistry between Riggs and Reed, something that the lead actor's off-screen antics never guaranteed. In fact, the entire cast is great playing various stereotype European types; the gloomy Russian, the lustful Italian, the rigid Prussian, etc. Between the European locations and the wonderful set design, the film moves between delightful set pieces with ease. The basic plot is the same as the book; a contract is put out to kill the head of the organization. This time, Reed seizes the opportunity with glee.

This is a post-Bond film, so the writers add another layer of intrigue, with Telly Savalas as the real mastermind, both seizing on the opportunity and ramping it up. He wants to use the organization to control European politics through a rein of terror, not just kill corrupt leaders. The main body of the movie is the duel of wits between Reed, running around various cities on the continent trying to avoid being murdered, and Savalas, working behind the scenes through the other members of the Bureau to achieve his own goals. This gives Reed plenty of opportunity for physical action when needed.

The delightful fly in the ointment is Diana Riggs, playing a suffragette reporter perhaps borrowed from Natalie Wood's role in Blake Edwards' 'The Great Race'. She is not as physical here as in 'The Avengers', with her karate moves in tight leather outfits, or as the doomed Countess in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. Instead, she insists on getting into the thick of the action, then finding herself both physically and morally incapable of dealing with the situation. This is best done during the first of the set pieces, which takes place in a Paris Bordello.

The deadpan black humor of the movie is established right there; slightly sexual, casually violent, deeply amoral. In trying to expose the Assassination Bureau, she becomes the agent of change, turning it from a relatively benevolent group who insist on justification for their murders to a terrorist organization using death to consolidate power. Reed protects her in his own way, making her suffer enough to understand the situation that she has put him in. Along the way, there is room for some great comedy.

My favorite actor in the piece is Curt Jurgens, who plays his part so broadly that he takes it into Monty Python territory. The attempted assassination with a giant sausage in Vienna is hysterical, bodies flying back and forth through doors, people dancing madly in the restaurant while Jurgens, in a ludicrous disguise, tries to deliver the deadly bratwurst. Again, it is the deadpan nature of everyone else that makes it so damned funny. Jurgens could act in eight different languages and an accomplished stage actor, but for this role he threw caution to the wind.

The long set piece in Venice is where some of the financial cracks start to show in the movie. Most of the scenes are stages built in England combined with blue screened actors. This was common practice back then, but the special effects are not done very well; Hitchcock was famous for his obvious rear projection scenes.  Even the early James Bond films use that technique in all the driving close ups. It was a common practice that was acceptable back them but sticks out like a sore thumb today.

The James Bond comparisons are most evident in 'The Assassination Bureau', and it does a better job of doing a spy/action film in an earlier time period than 'Wild, Wild West'. However, Bond films usually have hundreds of miniature shots in them; every big set has a corresponding smaller version, every explosion is done with a miniature car, plane, or boat on a miniature set. "The Assassination Bureau' does have a miniature zeppelin, which is featured prominently in the climax of the movie, but they superimpose it in the sky over a real castle instead of building a smaller version. This looks very unconvincing today and is a distraction.

The special effects guru who worked for the Bond films - over a dozen - was Derek Meddings. He learned his trade on the super-campy television series 'Thunderbirds', done entirely with puppets, skillfully parodied in 'Team America; World Police'. Everything was a scaled down set. His miniatures are flawless enough to be invisible, the secret of great special effects before CGI. They only worked when you don't notice them, thinking it a visual continuation of the story flow.

The British film industry after the Second World War increasingly became, except at the lowest 'Carry On' level, a subset of Hollywood. There was always American money and usually American producers for anything with a decent budget. Even the Bond films were produced by an American, Cubby Broccoli, and a Canadian, Harry Salzman. In 'The Assassination Bureau', with prominent roles for Austrian and French actors, it looks like the money was raised on the Continent. Unfortunately, they ran out of sufficient funds to make the conclusion work, despite the fine acting and intelligent script. A miniature castle would have made all the difference here.

This movie was produced at a very important juncture in the Bond franchise; Sean Connery had finished his initial run of five pictures, declining to continue. Panicked, the producers went on a well-publicized search for a replacement, choosing a male model from Australia, George Lazenby. Not being an actor, they surrounded him with an exceptionally fine cast, including Diana Riggs as his love interest and Telly Savalas as the most charming villain. This unbalanced the film away from the protagonist; when Lazenby found that his line readings were being dubbed by another actor, he revolted and left the franchise.

What if, instead of going for a clothes horse out of his depth, the Bond franchise had gone with a more dangerous choice and used Oliver Reed? He has the brooding physicality and inert danger that the young Sean Connery possessed, years away from meeting Keith Moon on the set of 'Tommy' and drowning himself in a sea of booze. There would have been no use for the  effective but bland Roger Moore to step in and save the franchise in the 1970s, steering the spy pictures into middle-of-the-road territory. It could have been a Bond for the changing times instead of an old school spy.

The idea is not as crazy as it sounds; decades later, Daniel Craig, a similarly unconventional leading man, was brought in to rebuild the Bond brand. In the original Ian Fleming novels, Bond is a very different protagonist, often in despair, alcoholic, full of self-doubt. Only recently has the franchise gone anywhere near that emotional territory. Oliver Reed could have been a cutting edge Cold Warrior during the turbulent cultural shift of the late 1960s / early 1970s.

There are even more Bond references in this story. Ian Fleming built upon ideas first brought to the public's attention by Joseph Conrad in 'The Secret Agent', but with more flair, style, and sadism. Fleming had been in the British spy service during the Second World War, basing his character largely on the exploits of one man, Sydney Reilly, the famous Ace of Spies. Reilly's story is too complicated to go into here; I would recommend a quick reading of his Wikipedia page. It is frankly unbelievable but true. Reilly was exactly the type of agent provocateur who would have fit in with the Assassination Bureau.

There is an excellent 1983 British television series, 'Reilly: Ace of Spies' that outlines his exploits. It stars Sam Neill, good as always, who was in serious contention for the role of James Bond when Roger Moore died. You can even see his screen test in the special features of 'The Living Daylights', although the role went to Timothy Dalton. Again, who knows where the franchise might have shifted if another actor had been chosen?

James Bond was an amalgamation of cultural trends, including Conrad's secret agent and the fiendish plots (and racism) of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu. The difference between the books and the movies is typical of the difference between those mediums, the later jettisoning the subtleties of the former. The Bond film was based on the Alfred Hitchcock model, specifically the wrong man being chased across the landscape that first appeared in 'The 39 Steps', refined in 'Foreign Correspondent' and 'Saboteur', and perfected in 'North By Northwest'. In fact, the original pitch for the first Bond film was for Hitchcock to direct and Cary Grant to star, but proven way too expensive.

Hitchcock did not invent the spy film; that honor would go to Fritz Lang, especially in the Dr. Mabuse films, but also in the 1928 German silent film simply titled 'Spies'. Most Americans don't know about Dr. Mabuse, who appeared in a series of German films starting in 1922. The most famous one, 'The Testament of Dr. Mabuse' from 1933, was a powerful enough anti-Nazi statement to cause Lang to flee Germany after a sit down with Goebbels. Returning to Germany after a quarter century exile in Hollywood, Lang's last picture was another Mabuse film that kicked off a series that predated the Bond pictures while curiously mirroring their content.

Lang retired after the 1960's 'The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse' but the character lived on. He was born out of the same desperate attempt to make sense of the seemingly out-of-control current events by creating a master plan that spawned 'The Assassination Bureau'. That same desire can be seen constantly on the internet; a sprawling, never ending collection of conspiracy theories about the Illuminati, the Zionists, the New World Order, or whatever floats your boat today. Events can't ber random; there must be a central intelligence behind it all.

An astute observer might have noticed that some of the plot points behind 'The Assassination Bureau' turned up in the second Robert Downey Jr ' Jude Law Sherlock Holmes vehicle, 'Game of Shadows'. Moriarty, Conan Doyle's 'Napoleon of Crime', is now using his powers to influence politics. Specifically, he wants the European countries to erupt into war, where he will profit from the arm sales. That is the exact reasoning behind Telly Savalas' action.

The original novel was aborted by Jack London, then resuscitated half a century later. The movie improved on the plot, had a great script and cast, but fell short in production values to be a real classic. It was part of the James Bond craze of the 1960s, yet reflected the origins of the character and the secret agent craze in ways that I suspect the writers, producers, and directors did not realize. Of all the James Bond knock-off - and there were zillions, especially from Italy and Japan - this one is the most intelligent and challenging, full of black humor and insight into the economics of death.

In America, the media has kept the general population ignorant of the difference between an anarchist, a communist, or a socialist. The important point for the media moguls of today, as it was for the media moguls in the period between 1881 and 1920 ,when the last anarchist atrocity, the bombing of Wall Street, occurred, its that anything but capitalism is a deterrent from their profit centers. Thus, all must be considered un-American. In fact, starting in 1920, there was a Red Scare, with an even more serious one after World War Two, both designed to drive out any 'alternate' thinking from both the government and the entertainment industry. Curiously, it is only in lightweight entertainment like 'The Assassination Bureau' that one finds traces of subversive thought; it is probably there completely by accident.

Today, anarchy is just another commodity on the open market, a word to be bandied around when some young person of intelligence wants to be edgy. The last gasp of real anarchy was the Unabomber; since then, we have lone nuts galore in a gun happy nation willing to commit atrocities simply for fifteen minutes of fame. Sometimes not even that much thought goes into these horrible acts. You can even buy an Anarchy hoodie at Walmart and make a fashion statement, if you so wished. We live in strange times.

A Coryell State of Mind

I hesitate to begin with the late great Larry Coryell. From 1966 until his death in 2016, he was the best guitarist on the planet, not strictly on a technical sense, although the case could be made that his knowledge of jazz, rock, Brazilian, classical, Indian and other styles qualified him for that title. Simply, Larry Coryell was the most generous guitarist, not only a superb recording artist who forged new styles, but who shared his enthusiasm for the instrument more than any other player. He was a teacher and a role model, moving past his own troubles to tutor and help anyone who ever asked.

Larry set out to be a journalist, only playing guitar in high school and college as a side gig. He learned how to read music while at college, which in the early 1960s was still a very important tool, especially if you wanted to be a jazz musician. Gigging with jazz musicians during his time at the University of Washington, he was encouraged to move to New York City, make the leap to professional. He did in September 1965. It took no time before he was deep into the jazz scene.

First with Chico Hamilton, then with Gary Burton, Larry immediately became an in-demand sideman in the jazz world. That is an important distinction; Coryell always remained at heart (and in his business model) a jazz player. His style was a little different, more trebly and biting than Wes Montgomery or Kenny Burrell, more fluid and inventive than Grant Green. He was the new thing in jazz guitar, but it didn't have a name yet.

There was never just one project; side tangents and guest spots in the jazz tradition were a constant throughout Larry's career. Although the Gary Burton gig was prestigious if an odd fit - delicate vibes against loud feedback guitar - it was the squalid East Village ghetto of musicians where Coryell felt most at home. In 1966, well ahead of the curve,  With like-minded next generation jazzbos like Bob Moses, Chris Hills and Jim Pepper, he formed the Free Spirits, combining rock, psych, folk and jazz in a vain attempt to get on the charts.

The project was typical Coryell; ahead of its time, signed to the wrong label, underfunded, temporary. It was also Ground Zero for the fusion of rock and jazz, predating Miles Davis, Larry Young or John McLaughlin by at least three years. More interesting was Count's Rock Band, a loose amalgamation of East Village musicians creating a much better mix of rock and jazz, taking long solos, treating rock songs like jazz standards. Although released on different labels, the two Count's Rock Band albums are cutting edge, even to this day.

Larry continued to appear on a dizzying number of albums as a session musician or guest artist, including with artists like Herbie Mann, Randy Brecker and Jimmy Webb. While normally floating from label to label with releases, he did manage to have a string of released from Vanguard Records. More important, Vanguard had a studio in the Village, Apostolic , so it was easy for Coryell to show up and record. Unfortunately, they were an odd fit, not knowing what to do with an artist trailblazing new paths between jazz and rock.

Typical of the situation was the album 'Spaces', featuring John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham, both before the Mahavishnu Orchestra, as well as Miroslav Vituos and Chick Corea. The defining jazz rock guitar summit to this day, the label just dumped it, having to re-release it with another cover after the Mahavishnu Orchestra became a huge international hit. Larry was there first, but didn't get the credit. No that he cared, off to record the next session, probably for another label.

With a wife and two kids, Larry was living like a rock star but playing jazz. The most famous story about his talent and taste was the session in May 1968, when he was supposed to play on 'Voodoo Chile', the slow bluesy version on 'Electric Ladyland'. A little late, he set up his amp while the rest of the band was playing. When Jimi Hendrix asked him to join, he declined. It sounded fine just the way it was, he wasn't need; he sat on his amp and watched them play instead. Not many people would turn down an offer to be on a Jimi Hendrix album.

He didn't look like a rock star; horn rim glasses and a too-easy smile made him accessible, even if his level of musicianship did not. He developed bad habits, drugs and lots of drinking, but there was a fundamental discipline that kept him going. He always included acoustic guitar numbers, even when stuff started to get really loud around the time of the 11th House in 1973. That band was a late attempt to match his main competition, John McLaughlin. Again, it made him look like a latecomer to the genre he invented.

His session work continued, with Charles Mingus, Stephan Grappelli, Sonny Rollins, and Chet Baker. A monthly column of guitar instruction was started in 1977 for Guitar Player magazine, continuing for twelve years, totally well over a hundred articles, books, videos, and eventually an excellent autobiography, 'Improvising', probably the only such book that came with guitar lessons and a free CD. Even his wife wrote perhaps the first (only?) book about the genre while it was happening, 'Jazz-Rock Fusion', in 1978.

Despite the discipline and hard work, Larry's lifestyle was starting to take its toll. As he describes in his autobiography, there were parts of his life that he had no memory of, such as playing with Jack Bruce and Mitch Mitchell for an entire tour. Even the older musicians were telling him to tone it down. The opportunity to play with John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola was subverted by too many hangovers. By the 'Standing Ovation', Larry is looking a little rough.

Rehabilitation meant moving away from the electric stuff, which he had been doing for years, especially on his duets albums with Philip Catherine. He was spending huge amounts of time touring in Europe in between guitar lessons and a constant string of releases on as many labels as would have him. It was a deep dive into classical music, challenging himself with Ravel's 'Bolero' or Stravinsky's 'Le Sacre Du Printemps', an impossible piece to play on guitar. Yet he managed it while also exploring more straight-ahead jazz in quartets during the 1980s.

By the end of the decade, Larry was hip deep in both Brazilian and Indian music, genres that he had explored earlier but where now he achieved mastery. The barrage of projects, each one unique and different, kept coming, including an ill-advised flirtation at CTI Records with smooth jazz (Rudy Van Gelder engineer, somebody probably likes it). The surprise was near the end of the 1990s, when Coryell took up loud electric guitar again after a twenty year gap, going back to the fusion trenches.

The fire was still, as was the technique; Coryell could replicate his own style from any period, something that even John McLaughlin can't do. Scorch earth policy ruled on CDs like 'Cause & Effect', exploratory fusion on 'Count's Jam Band Reunion', along with continued straight ahead playing on 'New High'. The product came even faster in the new millennium; finally, the public was starting to realize what a treasure he was, an irreplaceable musician.

As Larry grew older, he grabbed every opportunity to play, teach, and record. There were new ventures, such as a couple of hard fusion albums with Lenny White and Victor Bailey that showed spectacular playing and sympathy. There was new explorations of acid jazz/funk with the Wide Hive Players, digging deeper into rhythm and ensemble playing than ever before. There was even a reformation of the 11th House with Aphonse Mouzon and Randy Brecker.

Best of all, Larry kept spreading the word, preaching about music, his love of guitar. Many of his children became musicians, especially son Julian Coryell, an exceptional guitarist in his own right. Julian took it upon himself to remind the world just how influential and important his dad was, organizing a retrospective that included a reunion between Larry and the great Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie. Watching these two groove together after over thirty years apart is pure joy.

Larry Coryell finally went to the big jam in the sky in 2017 during the second of three nights at the Iridium in New York City. It was fitting; Larry was first and foremost a gigging jazz player, always in search of the next thing, always exploring the possibilities of the guitar. He was simply the best of his generation, both in technique and taste, overcoming his personal obstacles while spreading his love of guitar to anyone within earshot. No one could play more styles with such mastery yet always leave room for the other players.

The legacy he left behind is huge, both as a recording artist and as a teacher. No one was more free with advice and tips, revealing all his secrets. A true jazz man with an exploratory heart, there are over one hundred albums and CDs on dozens of labels released around the world, plus hundreds more as a guest on other people's work. I gladly seek each and every one out, each one a gem carbved from pure talent.