His chord work is beyond belief-as good as having a keyboardist on board. He’s truly a national treasure, as is his host, Les Paul. Two of America’s finest.
Agreed, Larry; Tommy Emmanuel; Dickey Betts (of Allman Bros), Brian Setzer (Stray Cats); and Steve Howe (of Yes); were to my ear the best jams with Les & his band. Just a handful can play really really well in this format, Larry is among the few.
There will never be another Les Paul. Amazing player, innovator and inventor. Looking at his hands in this video, seeing the arthritis, and he still kept playing. He is an unparalleled legend.
These guys are both American Treasures. More people should pay attention to stuff like this. We have lost so many great heroes and are producing so few.
Thanks for the link Chris! I used to tape his stuff in the 80s on vhs every time he was on tv. NightFlight and all the other old shows, I still have a ton of video tapes in my garage. Mostly tapes of Les and Mary doing oldies, but sometimes would catch a real gem! Always loved when he would play with Chet. True masters of their craft.
the sad scenario is that if you keep on cutting music programs from many schools whether its public or private schools there won't be ANY heroes left!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just stumbled across this video. So very cool to see. I was there (I'm the long-haired guy in the white shirt, sitting right at Larry's feet). Fantastic night. I got to hang out with some of my idols that evening, and wouldn't have much cared if I had got run over by the 51st St bus afterwards, 'cos my life was pretty much complete. :) Thx for posting. RIP Les, and Lou Pallo.
Larry is so good. Damn! He can play the most difficult jazz standards. When I first heard of him, he threw me off. I did not realize that he's actually a guitar master. I love his blues playing too. He actually learned a lot from the great late BB KING who took Larry under his wing and taught how to play real blues.
I've been watching these Les Paul Iridium videos for a week straight, and Larry is probably tied with Tommy Emmanuel in my book for how well they jam with Les on stage. Such a sense of fun!
See if the powers that be only had the power to release stuff like this we would never see it Thank God for RU-vid and all the masses who post this great stuff we would otherwise miss!!!
Brilliant Larry Carlton just gets up there and does it non-stop throw any chord at him and he can play guitar solos over the fast thinker experienced professional legend
I recently read an article where they were basically saying that Larry can't play real Jazz, and it might be the reason why he chose to play this "AS JAZZ AS YOU CAN GET" number. Larry is the REAL DEAL. You can't get more REAL JAZZ than this! He proved them to be wrong. He can play anything!
I was very fortunate to regularly see Mr. Larry at Donte's in North Hollywood... He, and sometimes Robin Ford,and always with top LA players, would just smoke the joint... every frikkin' time...
One of the reasons I dig Carlton so much is that he can go from straight no-bend jazz to stretching the blues without batting an eye...and he often does it in the same tune
But what guitar is Larry playing? It looks like a cross between a 335 and a 355 (Is there such a thing as a 345? -Yes, I just looked it up, but I'm still no clearer...), and even more importantly, what is Frank playing? IWOOT.
@@JJMMWGDuPree His iconic 1969 335. That's the guitar you hear with Steely Dan and so many others. His came with a tailpiece, but he had someone route it for a Tune-o-matic and they actually installed it farther back than normal. It supposedly created a very unique feel and resonance to that 335 and it's actually been replicated by luthiers for other players. I think the nut and tuners were changed, but other than that it's stock.
@@shawnmcvey7789 What? "Installed it farther back than normal"? They all have Tune-O-Matic bridges, if installed farther back the intonation would make it untunable! The TRUTH being...it's stock other than the "trapeze": tailpiece was changed to a "stop" style tail, some fret jobs and tuners and nut replaced.
A little FYI, his hand stays together, no massive stretching on chords, scale runs , arpeggios, etc. Anybody can do it. It's what's in your head. These are two masters at string logic. Watch and bow and learn.
Two of the greatest guitarists god could ever send to Earth. How amazing that must have been to sit there and watch that shit go down? Oh, how I wish Les was still alive. Plus, Bonus! Frank Vignola on that Gypsy, acoustic Guitar.
Wonderful. Loved that Blues in C, with all the interplay, plus the introduction of the acoustic, it was slightly reminiscent of Friday Night in San Francisco. What a treat!
Nicki is Always smiling and Totally Into the music! She is one of the most solid bass players around, and sings like an Angel! Her sister Lisa is a fantastic sax player, lots of talent in these two ladies from Australia.
I used to go see Les back in that time frame when I visited NYC; I've seen Carlton a few times also. Both of them together? Priceless. Would have loved to see this.
I'm primarily a keyboard player, who plays some guitar. Larry Carlton always seems to remind me of that. The man is a fretboard poet. What fun this must have been.
you can be the greatest rock shredder or metal tone monster or jazz genious , blues legend ..... but ....larry carlton is arguably ....... the greatest guitarist in the world . hes got it all
Isn't it a waste of energy to debate who the greatest guitarist in the world is? You have to know all the guitarist's in the world which no one does. Secondly, it's just an emotional outburst with no meaning to anyone. Oh well if it's your thing do what you wanna do.
1610austin - Yeah, you could argue that...but it’d be a silly, pointless argument. You haven’t even bothered to define what you mean by “the greatest”, so it’s impossible for any rational person to have any idea what you’re talking about. All anyone can infer is that you like his playing. That’s nice; so do I. Now what?
He's got some stiff compitition for that title. Steve Howe, Phill Keaggy, Guthrie Govan, Scott Henderson, Tommy Emmanuel, Eric Johnson, John McLaughlin, Al DiMeola, Pat Metheny, etc... its a guitar players world.