Guitarist Larry Coryell Talks about his Autobiography

Vince Lewis interviews Larry Coryell on the occasion of publishment of his autobiography, Improvising : My Life in Music (Blackbeat Books, May 2007), at Modern Guitars Magazine (04.10.2007) :

What caused you to become interested in jazz?

LC: The complexity and the mixes of the music and the fact that it was improvised are what really got me interested in it. Other music I could understand how it was possible to play, such as written music, but with jazz when I became aware that it was being made spontaneously, that was a big attraction.

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You met Wes Montgomery in Seattle. What was your general impression of Wes? Was he easy to talk to? Was he forthcoming?

LC: He was great! He was all those things. He was really a very humble man and because of his immense talent, he was thrust into the spotlight and he wasn’t really prepared. He was just a humble guy from Indianapolis. But he had that immense gift and he realized that even though he was nervous about making recordings and he never liked to fly that much, he made himself do it because it was part of his mission and his life. He was as friendly a man as you can get.

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What attracted you to pianist Bill Evans and his music?

LC: I think the same thing that everybody at the time was attracted by was his originality and his unbelievable talent and skill. He had carved out a style that was the polar opposite of the established Oscar Peterson approach that was very exciting and spectacular, and Bill Evans was more subtle.

I always think of Oscar as a hard driving guy and Bill with beautiful chord changes.

LC: Yes, but Oscar Peterson did play “Waltz for Debbie.” 

Oscar plays it and switches over to 4/4 in the middle.

LC: Well, that’s actually in the arrangement that Bill wrote.