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The wandering life suits Murali Coryell’s fresh musical style

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, June 26, 2008


Murali Coryell, left, has an impeccable guitar pedigree; his dad is jazz and fusion great Larry Coryell and his brother plays and writes with Madeleine Peyroux. Blues harmonica player and J. Geils Band alumnus Magic Dick, above, will take to the stage with Coryell at Chan’s in Woonsocket for two shows Saturday night.
Murali Coryell knows that the lot of today’s blues and R&B player is to tour constantly, building a live audience and selling CDs from the stage in between sets. He also knows that that’s harder than ever in the days of higher air fares and ridiculous gas prices.

But Coryell, who lives in upstate New York, has figured out a way to get around at least part of the problem: He’s got a stable of bands and players all over the country whom he calls on a gig-by-gig basis.

He has networks of backing players who know his songs in Chicago, Nebraska, New York, Massachusetts, California, Kentucky and more. Some of them are well-known and play in the regular bands of some of the blues greats as their main gig; some are obscure but talented.

“There are so many people out there who are incredible blues and rhythm and blues players. Some are famous and some are not. And to me, that’s what the music is all about — it’s almost like a jam-band attitude, I guess. But I consider blues and jazz guys the original jammers.”

It takes a long time to build up such a network, but Coryell’s put in that time — his first record came out in 1995.

“I’ve been doing this for a while now, and I’ve built up a comfortable stable of great players. In a perfect world, you want to have your own band all the time. And that is definitely great. But there’s also something to be said for playing with all these great players. You keep it really fresh.”

One of the benefits of the wandering life is the opportunity to sit in with and tour with legends such as King, Buddy Guy and members of their bands. “I’m so grateful and happy to be doing what I love and playing with my heroes.”

One of those heroes is harmonica player and J. Geils Band alumnus Magic Dick, who’ll play with Coryell this weekend. Coryell, 38, recalls listening to J. Geils Band records in high school and calls Dick “really special. In this dime-a-dozen world of blues harmonica players, you can’t find a better one.”

Another hero is Tony Levin, who won’t be with Coryell at Chan’s this weekend but who plays on Coryell’s latest record, The Same Damn Thing. “I was so thrilled to get him on my new record, and I can’t even get him on the phone anymore!” Coryell says of Levin, who plays with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson. The Same Damn Thing is another sure-shot collection of soul, roots-rock and R&B-inflected groove music with Coryell leading a trio and featuring his own rough-edged, fuzzed-out guitar, more similar to Jimi Hendrix (about which more in a moment) and Carlos Santana than his father.

Coryell is the son of jazz and fusion great Larry Coryell, and while he’s always played guitar, the family legacy weighed heavily on him for a while. His younger brother, Julian, also plays guitar, graduated from the Berklee College of Music at age 16 and now plays and writes with Madeleine Peyroux.

“I couldn’t do the jazz virtuoso thing like he and my brother do. . . . There was such a sense of pressure, with my dad and when my brother came along, that I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I was a regular kid, into sports and into school.”

The key, Murali Coryell says, was learning to do what you really want — a lesson he learned from his father and the great musicians who came naturally into his life.

“All my heroes, they all said, ‘You’ll find your own thing.’ Everyone starts off by imitating their heroes, but there comes a point where you have to develop beyond that.”

Now he embraces his legacy with songs such as “In the Room with Jimi,” the leadoff track from The Same Damn Thing, which recounts the story of being in a bassinet while his father played with Hendrix, as well as his decision to go his own way. When he played it for his father, he says Larry Coryell’s reaction was, “I like it, but it’s too short and you should have had me on it.”

Coryell says his father taught him some guitar techniques, and once gave him John Scofield’s number when he had trouble figuring out a Scofield song, but also introduced him to the concept of the freelance musical life he now leads. When a young Murali Coryell lost a bass player from his band, his father matter-of-factly told him, “Get another bass player.” “It had never occurred to me!,” Murali Coryell remembers now.

Coryell has two sons of his own now, and spending a lot of time on the road means a lot more work for his wife, but on the other hand, “It was the same thing for me. When I grew up, I didn’t know any other way. Dad went off to gigs and Mom took care of the routine. . . .

“There is some kind of plan out there, and I’m glad that I found my thing, and I’m glad that I get to be who I am.”

Murali Coryell plays at Chan’s, 267 Main St., Woonsocket, Saturday night. Tickets are $17 for the 8 p.m. show, $12 for the 10 p.m. show and $20 for both. Call (401) 765-1900 .

"Lu-eee-ze," howls Murali Coryell on "Louise," his mind, voice and guitar equally wrecked by trouble. The son of fluent jazz guitarist and sessioneer extraordinaire Larry Coryell, Murali has made an efficient little blues album with bassist Bill Foster and drummer Rod Gross. 2120 is rich with Coryell's explosive self-possession. He never goes for the easy stuff: "Hidden Charms" and "That's How It Is (When You're in Love)" are gems that trade in chicken scratches and country-soul dignity, respectively. Chicago blues is an unforgiving old style that takes some resonant chops to animate fully, and Coryell, who relieves his distorted tenor with nearly matching yelps from his distorted guitar, can call on them. Throughout 2120 he aches and screams, dirties things up and keeps them clean. One promising new hound. (RS 823)
JAMES HUNTER

Murali Coryell
They say the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, but Murali Coryell's laid back blues and soul is light years removed from father Larry's groundbreaking jazz-rock explorations of the late '60s and '70s, which occaisonally indulgent, often brilliant and never dull. Rather than the Mahavishnu-meets-Miles intensity of his dad's group The Eleventh House, Murali's music hones closer to Sam Cooke and Al Green, featuring tasteful old-school R&B grooves, refined guitar playing and his warm, reedy voice. Perhaps that's waht youthful rebellion means when you grow up with a jazz fusion pioneer as a father. And who knows-maybe it's come full-circle, as Coryell the First just two years ago released an album titled Laid Back and Blues. 8 p.m. at Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar-

Born in Fame, Guitarist Finds His Own Career and His Own Sound

AS an infant, Murali Coryell lay in his baby basket, looking up wide-eyed as Jimi Hendrix peered down at him. A few months later Carlos Santana was bouncing the little boy on his lap, and on his 10th birthday Miles Davis gave him a $100 bill.

No one would be surprised to learn that this child, son of the jazz guitarist Larry Coryell, grew up to become a musician and that Murali Coryell, now 30, is indeed becoming a guitar force. But he was not exactly handed an easy road to fame.

Murali (whose name means ''divine flute'' in Sanskrit) could not figure out those crazy chord changes he watched his father swing through, so Mr. Coryell -- who had neither the time nor the inclination to spoon-feed his son -- packed Murali off to guitar camp. Meanwhile, Murali's younger brother, Julian, picked it up immediately.

''I used to have a little bit of a jazz inferiority complex because of my dad and my brother,'' Mr. Coryell admitted recently. ''Carlos Santana and people like that would say to me, 'Man, you've got to become a great jazzer like your dad and carry on the tradition.' So I went through a phase where I was trying to learn jazz. I tried to play Miles Davis's 'Four' with Dad, but I couldn't. I remember feeling really bummed out that I was Larry Coryell's son, and I couldn't even play 'Four'!''

The father was not oblivious to his son's pain. Between world tours with Dizzy Gillespie and Betty Carter, Larry Coryell bought his son two records, Jimi Hendrix's ''Are You Experienced?'' and Steely Dan's ''Greatest Hits.''

''He said, 'I think you're gonna like this song and this one and this one,' '' the younger Mr. Coryell recalled. ''He was always pointing me in the right direction. Eventually, the blues just hit me. That's what made me want to play.''

The elder musician, it appears, sensed his son's gift long before anyone else.

''When Murali was just a few months old, in early 1970, he was brought along, in his little basket, to the Fillmore East, where I was playing in a band with Jack Bruce and Mitch Mitchell,'' Mr. Coryell, the elder, said. ''One of those nights, Jimi Hendrix came around to hear the show and was ushered into the dressing room where baby Murali was, and he stood over Murali's basket there and checked him out. Maybe some unseen connection took place between them, because Murali grew up, like Hendrix, to play blues guitar and sing the blues.''

This is no idle bragging from a proud papa. Murali Coryell does indeed have a Hendrix-style intensity to his guitar playing and a voice like Otis Redding's. Even those who do not consider themselves music aficionados -- and this writer is one -- cannot help being moved by his sound.

Which is exactly how Mr. Coryell achieves most of his acclaim -- by captivating people with live shows in concert halls or coffeehouses or Chinese restaurants. (His wife, Mary, a registered nurse, first saw her future husband performing in a bar in New Paltz and decided she liked him because he looked like one of the Beatles. Asked which one, she replies, ''All of them.'')

Until this year, Mr. Coryell booked and promoted all his gigs himself. His new manager, Geoff Cullerton, came on board when friends insisted he watch the guitarist at work.

Mr. Cullerton recalled that the owners at the Town Crier in Pawling called him and said, ''Larry Coryell's son is playing; you've got to come down here right away!'' ''So I did,'' Mr. Cullerton said. ''And I had a smile on my face within seconds after walking in the door.''

Though he still plays small clubs throughout the New York metropolitan region and is only a household name in certain households, Mr. Coryell has toured with Duke Robillard, has opened for George Thorogood, Gregg Allman, B. B. King and Wilson Pickett and has been featured on CNN's ''Showbiz Today'' and the BET channel.

''It's like dreams really do come true,'' said Mr. Coryell. ''You actually can grow up and meet these idols that you've grown up listening to -- and they like you! B. B. King asked me to sign a CD for him, and I was like, 'Oh, my God.' ''

That CD, ''2120'' (1999, CZYZ Records), was his second and won stellar reviews. James Hunter, writing for Rolling Stone, called Mr. Coryell ''one promising new hound,'' and a reviewer at CDNow said, ''This guy can wipe the floor with most of his next-generation colleagues.''

Fans have embraced him as well.

''This is what blues lovers have been waiting for,'' said a fan in Santa Barbara, Calif., writing in to Amazon.com. ''A giant new talent to turn the world on for the millennium.''

For Mr. Coryell, who is clearly happiest when on stage, sleep is an annoyance. He had just arrived home from Chicago, where he played a gig the night before, to guzzle several mugs of extra-strong coffee while chatting through an hourlong interview. Then he jumped into the shower and tore off to play two more gigs that evening. The next morning he would begin teaching an intensive two-week course at the National Guitar Workshop in Connecticut.

''I'm tired, but tired-happy,'' he said. ''If I wasn't so happy, I'd be really tired.''

At the first show that night, an outdoor concert in Kingston, Mr. Coryell's audience grew by the minute. Teenage boys sang along as he slid into Al Green's ''Love and Happiness.'' An older crowd tapped their feet, and Mary Coryell's parents -- a former nun and Marist Brother -- nodded joyfully. Others sat, looking hypnotized, as the roof of the stage trembled with vibration.

In Chicago, not 24 hours earlier, he had performed with Shirley King (daughter of B. B. King), and there was such a synergy between them, Mr. Coryell said, that the two are talking about a King-Coryell tour ''and not telling people it's not Larry Coryell and B. B. King,'' he said jokingly. ''There is definitely a second generation out there.''

Now that he has his own career and his own sound, Mr. Coryell said that playing music with his family has become a joy (his brother, Julian, is still a jazz genius, he said, sighing). The guitar trio released a CD this year, ''The Coryells'' (2000, Cheskey Records), and they will play at The Blue Note in Manhattan this Tuesday through next Sunday.

Still, music is a serious, competitive business in the Coryell family, and the years have not changed that. The elder Mr. Coryell approaches his young collaborators not as a kindly father but like the veteran he is.

''Dad is hard-line,'' the younger Murali Coryell said, laughing. ''He never gives us extra money or anything, like you might think a father would. He treats us just like other musicians. He always wants to be the center, the star. We all want to be the star.''

Latest by Coryell, shouldn't be missed
By DAVE MALACHOWSKI
06/20/2008

Murali Coryell
The Same Damn Thing
Recorded at the Clubhouse in Rhinebeck by Chris Laidlaw and Roman Klun, The Same Damn Thing sure isn't. The Woodstock-based guitarist and singer raised

the bar considerably by utilizing bass genius Tony Levin and master drummer

Gene Randolph, but its his own touch and sensitivity and style that make

this a work of note.

The flowing "I Was In The Room With Jimi," where he recalls "daddy used to

jam with Jimi (his father, jazz great Larry Coryell)," works well, while the

free and easy "The Same Damn Thing" shows off his powerful pipes. He plays

the blues in "Please Please Baby" with verve, and knocks one out of the park

with sparkling "You're the Only One."

Coryell's guitar playing is dead on, but it's his voice that is his real

calling card: soulful, emotional and flexible. Don't miss his regional

performances or this CD.

Visit www.muralicoryell.com.

Young Coryell chooses his own path

When most guitarists say it's their dream to play alongside Eric Clapton, you roll your eyes and think “fat chance.”

When Murali Coryell says it, you're almost surprised it hasn't happened yet.

Coryell, who plays the Bucks County Blues Society's Blue Thursday series tonight at A.J.'s in Bristol Township, has been surrounded by greatness literally since he was an infant, when Jimi Hendrix held him in his arms backstage at the Fillmore East. The son of jazz guitar giant Larry Coryell, Murali received his name from the same Indian guru who christened Carlos Santana, and as a young child he and his parents lived with both Santana and Jack Bruce of Cream.

He didn't follow his father's path to jazz but has become an accomplished blues and soul singer, writer and guitarist, performing alongside B.B. King, Buddy Guy and countless others.

But not Clapton. Not yet, at least ... although he was able to pass some of his CDs on to Clapton's manager when the guitar legend played a concert in Albany, N.Y., near Coryell's home, a few years ago.

“He and my dad played together. He's one of my greatest influences,” said Coryell, who had been reading Clapton's autobiography before this phone interview. “It's been a goal of mine to meet him and get a chance to play with him. He does pick younger blues guitarists that he likes to play with.”

But it's not like Coryell, who lived in Doylestown as a boy from 1973-76, is sitting by the phone waiting for Clapton to call. He's too busy carving his own musical niche, which includes six CDs since 1995 and a passionate live act that has earned him praise from CNN, Rolling Stone and The New York Times. His 2007 solo acoustic all-original album, “Don't Blame It On Me,” has gotten strong reviews in Guitar Player magazine and Blues Revue.

You can't pigeonhole Coryell. His 2005 three-song EP, “The Future of Blues,” recorded with bassist Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson) and drummer Gene Randolph, includes a blues, rock and R&B song. When he performs tonight at A.J.'s, he'll do so as part of a gospel trio that offers beautifully soulful vocals to go along with his incendiary guitar work.


“The No. 1 thing is the music,” said Coryell, who has been compared vocally to such soul legends as Sam Cooke and Al Green.

“Above ego, above whatever the fads might be, just get the music right.

“My whole style is the simple, organic approach. It all comes down to picking great songs. Whether I wrote them or somebody else wrote them, these are the vehicles with which you connect to the audience.”

Artistic talent runs in Coryell's family. His younger brother Julian was a jazz prodigy who has also enjoyed a successful music career. His maternal grandmother was the late Broadway actress Carol Bruce (perhaps best remembered for her role as Mama Carlson on “WKRP in Cincinnati.”)

Coryell also performs jazz, although he acknowledges he could never match the prowess of his father or brother.

“They were just wailing, and I didn't have that instant ability to do it,” Coryell said. “What I did have, as my dad pointed out, was a real feeling for the blues. I had to pursue what was in me.”

Coryell, who turns 38 on Saturday, admits that fame is one of his goals, not because he craves wealth and adulation, but because he wants to play his music for as many people as possible.

“It motivates very much, especially when I see all these "American Idol' offshoots,” he said. “To me it's debasing. We're celebrating mediocrity in America.

“I want to try to break through and at least be more famous than Sanjaya. Come on, how much are we all better off having seen Sanjaya? That didn't change my life at all. I'm trying to do something positive with my music.”

Murali Coryell performs tonight at A.J's, 5316 New Falls Road in Bristol Township. Admission $3. Show time 9 p.m. 215-949-9570.


October 25, 2007 8:13 AM

A BluesWax Reprint
This review ran in BluesWax issue #372 on 11/29/2007

Murali Coryell
Don't Blame It On Me
Self-Produced
BluesWax Rating: 8 out of 10

The Future of Popular Blues

As a young man, Marshall Chess worked for his father and his uncle at
the famed Chess Records. In 1970, when the Rolling Stones left the
less-than-scrupulous Allen B. Klein to start up their own label, they
called Chess to front the effort for them. After a substance
abuse-induced break with the Stones, Chess would try again with his
new label, CZYZ, and in 1999 released the album 2120 by the artist
Murali Coryell. Blues fans will immediately recognize the name of the
album as the address of Chess Records in Chicago (also commemorated in
the early Rolling Stones song "2120 South Michigan Avenue"). It is
purported that "Czcy" is the Polish spelling for the Americanized
version of his family name Chess.

And so in 2007 Coryell, a determined road dog, would release an
acoustic album, Don't Blame It On Me. As you might expect, being the
son of legendary Jazz guitarist Larry Coryell, Murali is blisteringly
competent on the guitar, however it's his vocals that immediately draw
you in. If Marvin Gaye were to grow up listening to the sugary
Euro-Pop of the 1970's BBC, one can get a hint of Coryeli's vocals --
soulful, yet vulnerable, yet still more Motown than Michael Bolton.

The opening title track, "Don't Blame It On Me," is a wonderful song
that sets a tone for emotion-steeped lyric lines and earnest grit. On
"Way Too Expensive" Coryeli's vocals lead a crisp acoustic guitar
through your traditional twelve-bar Blues format as he sings, "We got
the Iraq War/And Sisters are dying too/But the Administration tells us
its good for me and you/But its way too expensive/Way too expensive
for me and you." On the third track, "Standing The Test Of Time,"
Coryeli uses a powerful Blues-Rock structure to push through a
well-written song that is at once funky, Blues, and the best of Rock,
including a chorus that the listener quickly picks up.

Several of the tracks on Don't Blame It On Me appeared on previous
albums in an electric form, including the emotion-tugging,
father-to-son track "Hi Charlie" and the radio-friendly "Stop," where
he sings "Stop, Baby, wait a minute/I had my whole life planned before
you came in it."

Murali Coryell is the future of the popular Blues, albeit not the
only course in front of us. He is an exceptional songwriter who can
sing better than he plays and, brother, he can play! This album
contains the necessary 12-bars that old-schoolers want, but seeps with
a soulful Pop sensibility that should capture a wider audience. On
"Sea Legs" Coryeli incorporates the names of today's Blues icons in a
silly, yet adoring, format that appropriately recognizes those that
came before him. So he honors the art rather than simply quaffing from
that loving cup. What more could you ask for? Perhaps major
distribution?

Rick Galusha is a contributing editor at BluesWax

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