Larry Coryell - Vanguard Visionaries (2007)

The Larry Coryell volume in the Vanguard Visionaries series is a particularly confounding one. A pioneering jazz-rock fusion guitarist, there isn't anything here that was necessarily worth leaving off, but there isn't a single track taken from his brilliant Offering LP from 1972, leaving some curious choices. The other thing that's ridiculous is that it would have taken the producers an extra five minutes per volume to let you know where these tracks came from, album by album. There is simply the artist's catalog list next to the track order. This is lazy, lazy, lazy; truly inexcusable. For another, those who already bought The Essential Larry Coryell on CD have half of this set, and those who bought the double-disc Improvisations comp, made up of solo and Eleventh House cuts (divided by CD), have eight of these ten cuts. In other words, this is essentially the third time many of these cuts have been issued. As for the contents, from 1969's Lady Coryell there is the title cut, "The Dream Thing," and "Stiff Neck"; "The Jam with Albert" was taken from Coryell; "Spaces (Infinite)" is from 1974's Spaces; "Birdfingers," "Joy Ride," "Yin," and "Theme for a Dream" are all from 1972's Introducing the Eleventh House with Larry Coryell; and, inexplicably, "Sweet Shuffle" is from a Mood Records date entitled Standing Ovation from 1978. What does this set tell you about Coryell? That he's a brilliant and innovative guitarist. It doesn't tell you anything about his personnel, who have been some of the most important names in jazz as well as fusion, from John McLaughlin and Collin Walcott to Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones to Ron Carter and Roy Haynes to Alphonse Mouzon and Chick Corea. Sure, this set is cheap and sounds all right, but anybody who is interested in digging into Coryell is gonna want more info than track titles. The star rating doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of the music, which is high, but the sheer shoddiness of the presentation. © Thom Jurek