Hit a top note, then take it higher

SOLO or otherwise, guitarist Larry Carlton is in a zone of his own.

Larry Carlton

WHEN Larry Carlton walks on stage, his fans wait for that ­moment when he enters “the zone”. That’s the place where the Californian guitar master sounds like he cannot take another improvised note any higher. Yet somehow, amazingly, he does.

Carlton — who is in the middle of an Australian tour, culminating at the Melbourne Jazz Festival on Wednesday — puts it down to ­experience, plus the inspiration of playing with musicians who are great listeners: they know when the music is starting to gel as a performance.

“I’ve always, especially on my solo albums, been honest with what I play — nothing solo-wise was ever arranged or worked out,” Carlton tells The Australian.

“When I’m recording, it’s just like I’m on stage. If I go to the zone, the musical zone, during that song, that’s what’s going to be captured on that record.”

In more than four decades of playing for audiences around the world, Carlton has attracted a loyal following to his blend of jazz, fusion, blues, pop and rock. Still, some readers might be unfamiliar with this virtuoso and his music.

If so, it is more likely a case of knowing him without realising it.

Carlton is, after all, the guitar sound behind Steely Dan’s big-selling albums The Royal Scam and Aja. Yes, that was Carlton’s playing on Josie, Deacon Blues and the dreamy Aja.

Rolling Stone magazine rates his solo on Kid Charlemagne from The Royal Scam as one of the top three in rock history. Carlton also played catchy guitar on the Hill Street Blues theme, which won him a Grammy award, one of four in a career that ­includes 19 Grammy nominations.

In fact, it is difficult to avoid hearing Larry Carlton in popular culture. In between releasing a string of solo albums that include beautifully crafted songs High Steppin’ and Sleepwalk, and playing with bands The Crusaders, Fourplay and Stanley Clarke and Friends, Carlton has notched up 3000 studio sessions with artists as varied as Herb Alpert, Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez and Quincy Jones. He featured notably on ­Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album.

It was Joni Mitchell who best captured the essence of Carlton’s trademark volume pedal guitar technique when she likened it to fly-fishing. He had just appeared on Mitchell’s 1974 jazz-influenced recording Court and Spark. It’s a description Carlton happily ­accepts. “Yeah. There’s no attack. It’s very graceful,” he tells The Australian. “The note seems to come from nowhere and land some place, and I thought it was interesting when Joni Mitchell ­described my sound as like a fly-fisherman.”

Yet there are also plenty of instances where his solo bursts can be mean and menacing, in the best tradition of the blues.

Carlton counts Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery as his prime jazz influences, but the strong influence of the blues is unmistakable. Now 66, Carlton picked up his first guitar at the age of six. He recalls that BB King (who later duetted with him on Blues for TJ) was probably the first real blues player he heard.

“My grandmother had a record by him for some reason — and she gave it to me, and I listened to it, and became interested,” he says.

Carlton has no hesitation in naming the contemporary guitarist he likes most: Californian blues maestro Robben Ford. “For sure, that’s a given,” he says. The two of them have played together ­numerous times, recording an album and live DVD. They toured together for his only other Australian visit — a rushed, four-day trip.

Carlton admires John Scofield “very much” and likes Derek Trucks. I ask him about another guitar whiz, Jeff Beck, who, like Carlton, prefers not to sing. “He sounds like Jeff Beck — that’s what’s great. Every time you hear him — only one guy can sound like Jeff Beck. All the other guys are trying, but he’s the real deal.”

Critics told Carlton he was taking a big risk when he rearranged Eric Clapton’s Layla for On Solid Ground, the 1989 album released as he was recovering from serious injury after a crazed bandit shot him in the neck at the door of his home studio.

“I just played the song and rearranged it because I liked it,” he says. “But some people said, ‘that took a lot of nerve to play Clapton’s big instrumental song — and treat it your own way’.

“It never occurred to me that I would be treading on any ... water, like insulting him, not giving a version that people would like.”

Years later, in 2004, Clapton would invite Carlton to his famous Crossroads Guitar Festival, where he reprised Josie.

Carlton is playing Josie this time, and other audience favourites Smiles and Smiles to Go and Room 335. The repertoire is a mix of old and new.

He has only his electric guitar, starting concerts solo before introducing his band, a quartet all up comprising Aussie session musicians Phil Turcio on keyboards, Craig Newman on bass and Gerry Pantazis on drums. They hit the road on this Australian tour with just one day’s rehearsal.

“I’m sure they’ve done their homework,” says Carlton.

The Larry Carlton Quartet plays at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival on Wednesday.