Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Place: Nova Gorica / Velika dvorana Kulturnega doma Nova Gorica / Slovenia
Concert date: 06.12.2014
Attendance: 300
Larry Coryell is considered one of the most important guitarists who helped shape the world of jazz rock fusion in the early seventies, or more precisely around the turn of the sixties into the seventies. Now 71, he has seen and lived through it all in his career. With his musical vision he’s counted among the pioneers of the genre, so it’s no surprise that other revolutionary names, giants of their craft, came to meet him halfway. Their ideas were key to the development of jazz’s many varieties, adding ingredients from rock, blues, and even folk melos and neoclassical music in witty ways nobody had heard before. The aces Coryell has worked with over the years include (and included) Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Charles Mingus, Gary Burton, John McLaughlin, Al di Meola, Paco de Lucia, Philip Catherine, Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton.
For creative inspiration, Larry turned to Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace and set it to music, creating a two-hour concept that weaves together classical music, jazz fusion, opera and contemporary dance. But the project would never have been realized, or brought to Slovenian stages, without the huge dedication and enthusiasm of Zdravko Balantič, head of the cultural society Veronikine zgodbe. He took on this megalomaniacal undertaking by drawing in the Symphony Orchestra of the Academy of Music Ljubljana, with a female soloist and male soloists (and choirs), as well as the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, and the Faculty of Computer and Information Science to bring Coryell’s vision to life.
On the stage of the great hall of the Kulturni dom in Nova Gorica stood a »gigantic« orchestra, with a bit of space left up front on the far right, occupied by a mini jazz rock fusion band of three guitarists, drums and double bass. Quite an undertaking! You’d have wished for a slightly fuller hall, but what was there made up for it with plenty of heart. The audience melted into the spectacle in no time, though we waited quite a while at the start for Coryell’s first jazz exposé, since the opening word of the show belonged entirely and exclusively to the orchestra.
Larry was visibly enjoying himself during the concert. Even when he was resting his guitar, it was easy to see the musician smiling contentedly to himself and, in a way, conducting everything going on around him. The show was weighted equally between classical and jazz figures, with the vocal soloists as a constant presence. They laid bare the drama and gave the room that sense of the reality of Tolstoy’s story for a full two hours. Coryell had two excellent guitar buddies by his side: Nenad Stefanovič, master of classical guitar, and Igor Bezget, master of the jazz fusion school, who with a few venomously sharp, rapid-fire solo escapades showed that while growing up he’d listened to a ton of John McLaughlin’s older work. That guitar trio often recalled Coryell’s get-togethers with McLaughlin and the late Paco De Lucia, even if flamenco was completely absent from the arrangements this time.
Coryell painted a vivid landscape of shifting moods, true to the spirit of Tolstoy’s novel, alternating between passages written out in classical arrangements and jazz getaways. For the grand finale the two musical worlds fused completely into one! At that point Coryell stepped into the spotlight, plugging into the orchestra’s leading motif with a pure-blooded jazz improvisation. It made for a perfect moment of musical eclecticism, a thrilling melting-together of classical music and jazz. It won over everyone present so thoroughly that they just wouldn’t stop applauding and cheering the musicians, long after the last note of the show had died away in the hall.
Through Larry Coryell’s musical vision, »Vojna in mir« is a magnificent piece of work. Stage sets, backdrop projections, theatrical contemporary dance interludes and crisp operetta moments from male and female vocal soloists all come together in something so singular that it has no equivalent anywhere in the musical universe. Coryell and his team of big-hearted Slovenian musical masters completed their mission with flying colors!
Photo gallery
