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August 13 - 19, 2009
buzz@boulderweekly.com
• Guitar hero
Larry Carlton always has an ax to grind
by Dave Kirby
• Rocking yoga
The Yoga Rocks Mountain Fest inspires community
by Adam Perry
 Guitar hero
Larry Carlton always has an ax to grind
by Dave Kirby
What a weird thing to be remembered for — that gnarled, chaotic, brilliant madness of a guitar solo assaulting the middle eight of Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne.” Seriously, you don’t get far tracing the history of guitarist Larry Carlton without coming across this seemingly arcane Trivial Pursuit nugget prominently displayed as a genuine résumé article.
But for the guitar geeks that came of age in the late ’70s (the fat-fingered, crinked-neck closet hackers leafing breathlessly through the back-pages columns of Guitar Player every month for amplifier repair tips or 32 bars of drop-D tuning exercises from obscure fusion wizards or straight-faced advice on the finer points of callus maintenance), the guy was already a god amongst mere mortals.
Not Beck nor Marino nor Iommi, but quite possibly a guy who could, on any given day, out-rock and out-run any of them, and almost nobody had ever heard of him. It was the sight-reading, studio-star, dark-horse effect, the technical master as higher species.
By the time he was delivered into the employment of Messrs. Fagen and Becker, Carlton was already a session guy with a stupefyingly lengthy résumé, playing on as many as 15 records a week, literally speeding across L.A. from one studio to the next, buried in $150/hr checks being chucked at him by producers faster than he could count them. It was a weird life for a musician — it still is, to some extent — playing off meticulously drawn charts, sometimes even down to the solo parts. Gotta be perfect first time, every time. You don’t screw up on that kind of clock, and Carlton was regarded as one of the best. His peers weren’t Al Di Meola or Jimmy Page or Robin Trower; they were guys like Elliot Randall, Hugh McCracken and the legendary studio guitarist king Tommy Tedesco, none of whom ever played to a Bic-lighter arena.
If you knew who those guys were, you knew who Carlton was...
But Carlton was drawn to a solo career and by the early ’80s had pared down his studio and soundtrack work in favor of solo albums. Getting out of the studio wasn’t entirely a new experience for Carlton, as he gigged regularly with The Crusaders in the mid-’70s, but at a time when record companies were sniffing gold at the burgeoning fusion scene, Carlton decided to sample life at the top of the album cover.
And he did have some hits, notably his elegant read of the sultry instrumental classic “Sleepwalk,” in 1981, and a successful re-read of Mike McDonald’s “Minute By Minute” in 1986. But mostly, his records were simply chocked full of tasteful, occasionally dazzling guitar licks, generally subdued stylistically but always informed and aware of their surroundings, the trademark of a player who had mastered the art of incorporating studio demands for precision with the spontaneity of a practiced artist with a deep bag of tricks, and always a delicate balance between understated brevity and unleashed fretboard fury.
In 1988, Carlton took a .357 slug through the neck from an L.A. gangbanger in a botched robbery attempt outside his studio. Surgery and a lengthy recuperation followed the massive nerve damage trauma, as well as practically re-learning the guitar from the ground up. Nearly unable to speak for a couple of years, his career nonetheless barely missed a beat. Colorado jazzers will recall a couple of Winter Park Jazz Festivals in the early ’90s that featured Carlton with his band as headliner.
But these were tough times for the fusioneers. As jazz-rock subsided as a commercial force by the mid ’80s, it became increasingly replaced with what was semi-derisively known as WAVE jazz. Smooth to the point of somnambulant, the FM-friendly format seldom strayed far from catchy melodies, polite ensemble choreography and rigorously antiseptic production. More like instrumental pop.
Carlton bumped along with that tide as well. It wasn’t a fruitful time for fretboard burners or stylists, and he was unfortunately lumped in with the wallpaper-aesthetics that WAVE jazz engendered. And at a time when the Wynton Marsalis brand of neo-jazz revisionism dominated the jazz columns and the awards ceremonies, the guitarist was now challenging a different paradigm — the inch-deep, mile-wide homogenization of sound-alike commercial jazz.
Still, he copped a handful of Grammies and nominations during this time, toured with Stanley Clarke in a fusion-revisionist band,
branched out to more traditional jazz, and produced a very nice southern blues experiment with Chuck Leavell called Renegade Gentleman. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Carlton had a stunningly broad résumé of experience to draw from, and he successfully evaded the WAVE jazz backwaters, which proved to be a trap for so many others. His fans — the ones initially drawn to his Steely Dan-era bite — have been generously rewarded this decade, with more bluesy, aggro-fusion releases like Fire Wire and the recent Live in Tokyo, recorded with his old buddy and Crusader-successor Robben Ford.
So now at 61, Carlton is a player completely comfortable in his own skin. Still a guitarist’s guitarist, steeped in a style that alternates between under-spoken and downright predatory, Carlton is a survivor in the truest sense, generous in his musical expanse and shockingly humble in his embrace of divergent styles. And reportedly doing a few shows with Steely Dan on their summer tour this year… what goes around, indeed.
So here’s a little advice: put that silly video game down and get yourself out to hear a real Guitar Hero.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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On the Bill
Larry Carlton performs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20, at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder, 303-786-7030.
 Rocking yoga
The Yoga Rocks Mountain Fest inspires community by Adam Perry The juxtaposition of music, yoga and nature “has the ability not only to connect you to a deeper aspect of yourself but to connect you to everything and everyone everywhere, universally,” says Rachel “Shakti” Redding, a Boulder-based yoga therapist who has been teaching the “blissipline” of Inner Power Yoga all over the world since 2000. Redding, an Indiana native, founded Yoga World Reach a few years ago and focuses the nonprofit’s energy mostly on teaching yoga to people recovering from stress and trauma, whether caused by poverty, disease, disability, domestic violence or even just the ubiquitous “9 to 5” nausea. From drawing crowds of children into impromptu yoga classes on the beaches of Belize to organizing her annual Rocky Mountain Yoga Conference in Vail, Redding keeps busy sharing the inspiration and strength of music, yoga and nature, a combination that helped her escape substance abuse and even recover from a near-fatal car crash. Redding came to Colorado about 15 years ago — “beckoned by the mountains” — and just last year began holding the annual Yoga Rocks Mountain Fest at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons, featuring more than a dozen musical acts, countless yoga and meditation workshops from 20 instructors, plus community-oriented booths, food vendors, drum circles and other surprises. To Redding, bringing yoga, the beauty of Colorado, and great live music together was a no-brainer. “It just creates a celebration, a pulsation of the entire living community,” she says. “When there’s no music and you’re practicing yoga in silence and stillness, that is such a beneficial and amazing way to practice. The rhythm and the pulsation of the universe, even just your heartbeat, can create a dynamic music just on its own. But when we come together as a yoga community, celebrating the musical vibration of like-minded consciousness and voices of unified peace and joy, and we put it all together in a setting that’s under these amazing trees, rock croppings, and right alongside the river, it magnifies the potential for infinite possibility and ultimate joy and bliss. It’s so much fun.” Last summer, about 250 people attended Yoga Rocks, and this time Redding expects even more. The diverse musical performances, from the funky kirtan devotionals of Girish to the bluegrass of Mountain Trance Medicine Band, will be donated as part of Yoga Rocks’ overall effort to raise money for Yoga World Reach’s many ongoing projects, including a humanitarian trip to Africa this December to bring yoga and much-needed supplies to the Sudan. In addition to exciting bands, Yoga Rocks is also blessed with the help of many local volunteers, such as Boulder Weekly’s own Irene Joyce, who has danced with Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet and Sweden’s Gothenburg Ballet. Partnered with Boulder’s M.E.S.A. (Moving to End Sexual Assault), Joyce blurred the lines between artist and audience at Yoga Rocks last year by performing a modern-dance piece centered on the subject of domestic abuse to the recorded sounds of Sigur Ros and other poignant music. “It was beautiful,” Joyce says. “I was invited to do a little dance performance and workshop. There were yoga classes letting out, and people started coming in while a friend of mine named Jeremy Kotenberg and I were doing thematic improvisations onstage.” Joyce is returning to Yoga Rocks next weekend to hear live music, take some yoga classes, and sell her homemade chocolates, with half of the proceeds going to Yoga World Reach. The three-day mixture of performance and practice looks to be eclectic and unpredictable once again, although with the expansion of performers this year, Redding seems most excited about the music. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with practicing in the quiet stillness of a very solitary room,” Redding says. “But there’s also a time for getting together as a community and truly rocking in celebration. The music rocks your soul… and that’s why we call it Yoga Rocks.” Adam Perry writes a music-related blog called Beautiful Buzz at www.adamperrywrites.wordpress.comRespond: letters@boulderweekly.com
On the BillThe Yoga Rocks Mountain Fest takes place Aug. 21-23 at Planet Bluegrass, Highway 36 just northwest of the historic area of downtown Lyons, 800-624-2422, www.yogarocks.info.
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