Cover Story

July/August Issue 2008

For many, their first taste of Larry Carlton’s Blues drenched guitar was as a member of The Crusaders (aka: The Jazz Crusaders), the band that rocked it with a funky jazz style – ushering in the genre we now refer to as jazz-fusion. “I started playing with the Crusaders in 1971 and recorded 13 albums with the band before leaving in 1973. On the album Crusader’s 1, the tracks So Far Away and Put It Where You Want It, that’s me.” However, for me, it was as one-fourth of the contemporary jazz super band Fourplay that I got an up close and personal look at what Carlton is working with and that included his propensity for the Blues. “The Blues is a great setting for the guitar to speak,” says Carlton. “That’s what I relate to. With me and my guitar in the Blues setting, it seems as if I can become extremely emotional very quick. The simplicity and the harmonic limitations of the Blues are a real plus; that makes it easier for emotions to take over as you play.” And if you have seen Larry Carlton play the Blues, you know exactly what he’s talking about.

Beyond what Carlton does with Fourplay, he also fronts his own musical origination, the Sapphire Blues Band. “I love the Sapphire Blues Band,” Carlton explains. “It is instrumentally a Blues based approach to music.” Larry went on to say this about the Sapphire Blues Band. “We went to Japan this year and recorded a live album to be released sometime in 2009 with Kebmo. Recently, I’ve just been touring with my trio, which is very exciting because it’s all guitars – no sax, no piano – just drums and a bass. The guys [and gals] that come to see me play will get a lot of guitar. Man, they had better love that there guitar of yours!

Ooops nearly forgot this. Fourplay will be releasing their 11th album in August 2008. All I could get from the guitar man was, and he said it with a smile in his voice, “It’s not ready yet. We’re sequencing and shoring up the art work as we speak.” Heck, I smiled, too and cheerfully responded with, okay! And that was that.

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