Jazz man happy as Larry

STEELY DETERMINATION: "You can't plan on magic – and when it happens you've got to stand back and say 'I'm sure glad I was along for that ride'," says guitarist Larry Carlton.

TOM CARDY

Last updated 05:00 27/05/2014

Even if you're not a fan of jazz or don't recognise Larry Carlton's name, chances are you've heard him play.

That's because the four-time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist has played on big-selling albums – and the theme to the popular television drama Hill Street Blues. And it's not just simply being a session man. Carlton's distinctive playing style, usually on his signature Gibson ES-335 guitar, has been essential to the music.

One of the best known is Michael Jackson's She's Out of My Life, from Off the Wall in 1979, both produced by Quincy Jones. But Carlton, who for a time was doing session work up to 500 times a year, says it was a fluke. "When Quincy was doing Off the Wall I had already discontinued doing session work. Tom Bahler, who works with [Jones], wrote the song. Tom called personally. He said, 'Larry, we've got this one tune for Michael and Quincy and we both looked at each other and said it's gotta be Carlton'.

"So I went in and did She's Out of My Life – and that's the only tune I played on the album."

Elsewhere, Carlton's played across whole albums. It's him on guitar on Joni Mitchell's acclaimed 1973 release Court and Spark, when Mitchell was moving away from folk roots to rock and jazz.

Among the many other artists he's worked with are Sammy Davis Jr, Paul Anka, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Carole King, Dolly Parton, Billy Joel and the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia.

Talk of Garcia reminds Carlton that at one point he was playing on so many albums, he'd have to be reminded what he'd played on.

"The [Garcia] album was in the can and unreleased for I don't know how long. So when it came out and I was doing interviews people would say, 'you're on the Jerry Garcia album' – and I had no idea. It was too long ago.


"There are songs that are still surfacing that I've forgotten that I've played on. I go, 'wow! I did play that'."
Read more: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/10086044/Jazz-man-happy-as-Larry