Play that funky music, Larry Carlton.\u00a0 Somehow that just doesn\u2019t sound right, but there it is. The master of smooth jazz fusion has gone all funky on us\u2014or so suggests Carlton\u2019s most recent studio outing, 2005\u2019s energizingly-named Fire Wire<\/i>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Carlton, one of a handful of former session players who\u2019ve managed to carve out a niche as pure instrumentalists, writing and playing their own tunes with no apologies offered, is a guy with such instantly recognizable tone that it\u2019s almost startling to realize how many different styles he\u2019s covered in the course of his long career as a solo artist. He\u2019s done straight blues and Southern blues, easy listening \/ adult contemporary jazz, driving pop-rock with jazz shadings, acoustic fusion and electric fusion, and his natural style draws equally from rock, jazz and blues.\u00a0 Still, his tone and phrasing are so immediately identifiable that whatever style he\u2019s playing in, it always sounds like Larry Carlton\u2014except on Fire Wire<\/i>, it\u2019s easily the funkiest Larry Carlton we\u2019ve ever heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cInkblot 11\u201d is a driving opener with a stellar horn chart that really punches up the choruses, a chunky Tom Johnston- Doobie Brothers feel on the verses, and sharp, stinging solos. \u201cDouble Cross\u201d keeps the drive going with the rhythm section pushing all the way and a super-catchy chorus riff. \u201cNaked Truth\u201d eases off the throttle momentarily for a sleepy-eyed, sentimental blues that Carlton dirties up with an uncharacteristically fuzzy tone that reminds a little of Tony Iommi trying to play a lyrical ballad. Not sure Tony could pull it off, but Larry sure can.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurrender\u201d is more standard Carlton fare, a little blues shuffle with some B-3 for flavoring and nimble, nip-and-tuck solos. The segue is sharp, then, when Carlton rumbles into \u201cBig Trouble,\u201d whose Zeppelin-scale riff almost qualifies as parody, given the contrast between Jimmy Page\u2019s \u00a0trademark sleazy tone and the fat and heavy and yet utterly clean pitch Carlton lays on you here.<\/p>\n
On \u201cDirty Donna\u2019s House Party\u201d and \u201cThe Prince,\u201d Carlton returns to the groove with a vengeance, with a full horn section and clavinet on the former and very Al Kooper-esque, New Orleans funk Hammond work from Jeff Babko on the latter. And then there\u2019s \u201dSunrise.\u201d\u00a0 Is there such a genre as funky acoustic sleigh bell music?\u00a0 Or is this cut truly the first of its kind?<\/p>\n
The crystal-clean funk Carlton essays on closer \u201cMean Street\u201d reminds of some of the less heralded album tracks from 1977\u2019s Frampton Comes Alive <\/i>like \u201cDoobie Wah,\u201d where Frampton would do that British blue-eyed funk thing. It sounded a little funny at first because it was so clean, but it sounded good, too, and it sounds good here, especially when Carlton puts some genuine sizzle into his soloing towards the end.<\/p>\n
On Fire Wire<\/i>, Larry Carlton digs deep and taps into the youthful drive that some of his recent albums have lacked. For the most part they\u2019ve been breezy listens that you enjoy, but that you don\u2019t miss much once you move on because the music didn\u2019t make much impact. It does here, though\u2014it most certainly, funkily does. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5974],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41306","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-larry-carlton","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41306"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}