After 45 years of making records, Larry Coryell may have just cut his best one ever. Larry Coryell with the Wide Hive Players is a collaboration with this Bay Area-based rhythm and horn section, and the results are astonishing. Throughout the 13 tracks, Coryell raises his freak-flag high and ably resurrects the sound of pre-Mahavishnu fusion with style and precision. The correct elements are here – slightly grungy guitar tones, funky brass arrangements, sexy Fender Rhodes piano licks, and grooves to die for. Atop it all, Coryell jams with joyous abandon, mixing blues, rock, soul, and complex jazz phrases as only an old ’60s master can. No wonder he’s regularly touted as “the godfather of fusion” (if you’re in doubt, listen to landmark jazz-rock LPs like Chico Hamilton’s The Dealer from 1966,
or the Free Spirits’ Out of Sight and Sound from ’67).

Now, back to the present. Cue up “Terco” for a good example of Coryell’s acid-fusion nirvana. A deep, urban vamp provides the perfect backdrop for him to get funky with badass bends, post-bop phrases, and a not-quite-clean tone that evokes a gritty city scene. “The Last Drop” does what is unthinkable to today’s musicians, but which is to mix horns, Hammond organ, and acoustic guitar in a jazz tune. Larry smokes his solo nevertheless, playing without any trace of post-modern irony; he just delivers a great acoustic improv over an interesting harmonic situation. On “The Return of Shirtless,” the accent is on classic R&B á la Blood, Sweat & Tears or the Electric Flag, with Coryell employing a phase shifter to brilliant effect on a series of nasty solos. And in “Moose Knuckles,” you may think you’ve stumbled over a vintage jam from Terry-Kath-era Chicago or the original Steely Dan lineup – it’s a veritable time machine back to days of taste and tone.

After listening to Larry Coryell with the Wide Hive Players a few times, you may smack yourself on the forehead as you realize how hip fusion guitar was before speedsters like John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola cranked it through a Marshall stack. Cut by cut, Coryell reminds us that the genre’s true roots lie in hard bop, blues, ’60s soul, and funk music, not hard rock and prog (the retro typeface and artwork on the cover are no accidents either, allowing us to visually reconnect with old-school fusion in all its trippy, hash-fueled glory). The coup de grâce is that at age 68, Coryell is making some of the most exhilarating, ballsiest music of his career. Hats off, too, to the amazing Wide Hive Players for giving him plenty of room to prove he’s still got it.

– Pete Prown
Vintage Guitar, August 2011