Organist Larry Young had a very short career, but he packed a lot into that tiny span of time. He only recorded between 1960-1977, because he sadly passed away suddenly in 1978 due to complications from pneumonia. He was only 37 years old.
He famously recorded with Miles Davis in 1968-1969. His organ playing appeared on Bitches Brew and Big Fun. Fun fact: Some of the material that was eventually released on Big Fun miles released as a single! The nearly 30 minute long “Great Expectations” was released in a version that clocked in less than 3 minutes. The b-side of this bizarre single was a two and a half minute version of “The Little Blue Frog”. Larry Young’s playing is very prominent on “The Little Blue Frog”:
Shortly after leaving Miles’ group, he recorded with fellow Bitches Brew alumni John McLaughlin on his solo record Devotion. Here is a tantalizing clip of that band in action, with a montage of a couple songs from the record. I wish there was full performance footage of the group, but this is still pretty wild to see:
Larry Young was also a member of Tony Williams Lifetime, appearing on Emergency!, Turn It Over and Ego. As I alluded to earlier, there is not a whole lot of video footage of Larry Young playing…however about a year ago some killer footage of Tony Williams Lifetime was surfaced and it is worth the wait!
Here is another cool clip of Larry Young playing live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1971:
Beyond these short clips, there’s really not a lot more live footage out there of Larry Young.
Nevertheless, Larry Young did record a handful of solo records in the 1970s and they’re all bangers. My favorite is one of the last records he made, Lawrence of Newark, which is today’s pick!
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Lawrence of Newark was recorded in 1973, soon after he left Tony Williams Lifetime, but it wasn’t released until 1975. It was released on a tiny label called Perception. Less than a year after it was released Perception went out of business. So this was for a long time a very rare album. Thankfully, in the early 2000s, it was finally re-released on CD which brought it wider recognition.
The band he assembled for the album is pretty incredible. It includes Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone, James “Blood” Ulmer on guitar, Junini Booth on bass, and Jumma Santos on a variety of percussion. Beyond the bigger names, the full ensemble is actually 20 members large! 7 of them played drums and percussion, so you know this record is full of funky rhythms that are right up my alley!
The album opens with “Saudia” which sounds like middle eastern influenced space rock! Larry Young’s organ soars throughout:
My other favorite is the complex heaviness of the epic “Khalid of Space, Pt. 2: Welcome”. You can definitely hear Pharoah Sanders and James “Blood” Ulmer making their presence known on this song. A wild excursion that takes you to the far reaches of pounding funk rock with completely overwhelming drums and percussion:
The whole record is fantastic. If you like what you’ve heard above, you should definitely dive into the whole thing. Lawrence of Newark is a great slice of avant-jazz that deserves to rise out of its obscurity.
