by Haven James

It was a couple of years back. We’d stopped in for a late supper, and there was a band set up to play in the bar. Some young guy was tuning a semi-hollow body B.B.-style guitar; there was a bass and drums, the usual. We sat around the corner intending to talk and have a quiet time, and then the music started. "What the ...? Who is this kid?"

Murali Coryell turned some heads that night. He’d just released his debut CD, Eyes Wide Open on Big Mo Records, and he got right to the business of opening a whole bunch of eyes, and ears, to his music. Fast but not too, tasty with a good blend of nuance and flash--even the James Brown stuff worked as Coryell laid down a solid set of classic R&B and blues, vocals and all.

Now a regular on the Ulster County music scene, Murali appeared at Tinker Street Cafe last weekend and will perform this Friday, October 17, at Magillicuddy’s in New Paltz. And the big news of the week is the bulletin that there’ll be a return of the once-annual Halloween bash to the Bearsville Theater, and Murali Coryell and band will headline the affair.

Regulars appearing with Murali are Rod Gross on drums and Bill Foster on bass. Both are originally from Maryland but currently reside in New York’s cult music capital, scenic downtown Brooklyn. Also from Brooklyn and a new addition to the band these days is singer/keyboard artist Trischa Woods. Odds are these three and possibly a special guest or two will make up the holiday coven at the Bearsville extravaganza.

What’s for sure is that both Gross and Foster will be in town working with Murali on his new recording effort, just under way at the big studio. Co-producing with Marshall Chess, Murali will front part of a traditional Chicago blues venture to be called Twenty-One Twenty. They may re-record his title cut from the CD, "Eyes Wide Open," for this record, but, he says, "What we’re definitely going to be doing is traditional blues songs, like Elmore James, Little Walter, Otis Rush, those kinds of guys, and an Otis Clay song that I’m really excited about, an old soul song. This recording project will be the biggest of my life."

It’s interesting to note that Murali’s recording career began seven years ago at the Bearsville Studio. His first band, The Ambassadors, had caught the ear of engineer George Cowan, who brought them in for a session. Five years later came Eyes Wide Open, and then in February Murali returned to the studio to record a number of his original blues and R&B and soul tunes, which have yet to be released. The Halloween concert will include songs from all of the above, a pretty wide spectrum of music. "I don’t just do blues, I don’t just do R&B and soul; I do both of them. Some people have said, Oh, that’s too much. To me, they go together; that’s my favorite music, that’s what I like to do."

The name Coryell is, of course, legendary in music. With the premiere jazz fusion pioneer, Larry Coryell, for a father, and the very accomplished jazz bassist, Julian Coryell, as the prodigy brother, following on that path proved as daunting to Murali as it sounds like it might have been. "I always knew I wanted to do music, but there was a time in my life, when I was much younger, when I was a kid, when I was just too afraid to take on that challenge," he recalls. And though Murali played a bit of drums as a child and was surrounded by music, it wasn’t until he was 15 that he finally accepted his calling and took on the guitar.

The greats who frequented the Coryell living room would fill a who’s who, and clearly their presence did sink in. "I was told that Jimi Hendrix held me when I was a baby," Murali says of his early years, affirming that he’s virtually a product of musical osmosis. "I was living with Carlos Santana when I was in a crib ... I was too young to remember these things, but I believe you take all those things in; even when you’re an infant, you’re open to all the senses, the environment ... [I remember] just always having music around me."

But when the time came, the circumstances of being a teenager, dealing with all the crises that adolescence can bring plus the complexities of difficult family dynamics, the natural path that opened to this Coryell was the blues.

Though it was the rock/blues of Led Zeppelin that first stole Murali’s ear, his dad was there to steer him toward the source. B.B. King’s Live At The Regal was it--once bitten, the blues became a passion. Off to the National Guitar Summer Workshop, the trail opened easily: "I was brought up in the ’80s; everything was technical, it was like the age of guitar heroes, [and] that’s not the easiest thing to do. So I went there and everybody got along, it was friendly and [that] made it fun, that’s when I really got serious."

That fall, he went on to SUNY New Paltz and started participating in everything musical he could find to do. Abandoning a major in language and foreign service, his band, The Ambassadors, became his new alternate diplomatic corps. Graduating with a degree in music theory and composition, the young Coryell scored a big time job as, you guessed it, a waiter.

That got old fast, and when an opportunity to intern at Bearsville opened up he went for it. In the ensuing years he joined the faculty at the Guitar Workshop, made a variety of appearances with major talents (including his father), and then toured with Duke Robillard, which led to getting signed by Big Mo Records and his first major album.

Murali’s voice and playing styles have been compared to greats from Sam Cooke to Eric Clapton. Actually, it would be kind of fun to take someone to the Bearsville Halloween party and play Name That Band--provided they wear masks, that is. It’s likely the guesses the game might produce would be a stunning list.

It’s not a clone thing, though; more a mastery of styles. There is an honesty in Murali Coryell’s performance that is seductive; instead of being imitative, it evokes a sense of purity of form. If traditional blues, R&B and soul music are to carry on as viable elements in tomorrow’s music, there will have to be young artists capable of carrying that torch. Murali Coryell is one such marathon runner who is ready to run that course. ++

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