Here’s why you should go hear Larry Carlton in Largo

In this age of rampant impersonator acts, and legacy bands that tour with the drummer as the sole original member, sometimes an honest-to-goodness musical legend comes to Tampa Bay.

Often, these shows fly under the radar.

Sunday’s appearance by jazz guitar icon Larry Carlton is a case in point. He’s performing at the Central Park Performing Arts Center, a modest 443-seat venue at the intersection of Ulmerton Road and Seminole Boulevard in Largo.

Jazz buffs will know Carlton from his 1970s stint as a member of the Crusaders, and a later turn in the superstar quartet Fourplay. Or from his lengthy career as a solo artist.

For those who care about such things, Carlton has four Grammy Awards, including one for Best Pop Instrumental Performance (“Theme from Hill Street Blues,” with Mike Post, 1981).

All very impressive. However, Carlton made his name as a studio session player, and any self-respecting record collection will include something that he put his indelible mark on. It’s a some of the most stylish and sophisticated popular music.

Steely Dan, The Royal Scam. “If that is the definitive Steely Dan guitar album, then Larry Carlton is the reason why,” co-founder Walter Becker once commented. “He contributed quite a bit to the tunes. There would be lot of volatile people with volatile music styles in the room and, in a lot of cases, it seemed to me that Larry, more than anybody else, was holding things together rhythmically and in other ways.”

Carlton’s long and distinctive moonshot on the track “Kid Charlemagne” is often named one of the best guitar solos of all time. “Third World Man,” recorded during the Royal Scam sessions but held until Gaucho, the final Steely Dan album for decades, also features a Carlton solo that musicians often cite as their favorite from the era.

Steely Dan, Aja. Carlton’s guitar solos and snakes through every song but one on Steely Dan’s most successful album. “He’s a real virtuoso,” Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen said. “In my opinion he can get around his instrument better than any studio guitarist.” Carlton was also the lead guitarist on Fagen’s first release as a solo artist, The Nightfly.

His studio resume from the ‘70s and ‘80s also includes Michael Jackson (Off the Wall), Randy Crawford, Michael Franks, Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Etta James, Billy Joel, Al Jarreau, Minnie Riperton, Olivia Newton-John, Linda Ronstadt, John Klemmer, Tom Scott and Leo Sayer. Plus hundreds more.

And then there was Joni.

Joni Mitchell, Court and Spark, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Hejira and Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter.

Carlton was a member of Tom Scott’s L.A. Express when Mitchell tapped the band to help with her first foray into jazz tonalities and arrangements. Carlton’s sound is all over “Help Me,” “Free Man in Paris” and the other tunes on the singer/songwriter’s first big commercial success, 1974’s Court and Spark.

He had left the L.A. Express by the time Mitchell took them on tour (the live album Miles of Aisles), but she summoned him back into the studio for her next project, the experimental (and very jazzy) The Hissing of Summer Lawns (hear him on “Shades of Scarlett Conquering, “Edith and the Kingpin” and other standouts.

Hissing was reportedly one of Prince’s all-time favorite albums.

From 1976, Hejira took a left turn – the songs are languid and contemplative, allowing the complex words to snake in and out of the music to form atmospheric tone poems. While holding form, and structure, and substance.

Carlton’s guitar work on “Amelia” and “Black Crow” is a master class in matching music with mood.

“The sessions,” the guitarist once said, “were done one person at a time. When I came in to play all I had to listen to was Joni’s acoustic guitar and her vocal, and she just had me go out into the studio and react to the music. She gave me no direction, there was no time ahead of time to learn the songs – that’s never the way we’ve done our sessions – we come in fresh and we react to the tunes on the spot.

“On that record Joni had me play three, four, maybe five takes of reaction guitar, and then that would be the end of it. I would leave and she would later choose and pick which of my reactions she really wanted and agreed with on that song, and I think she did a great job of editing my parts, they fit like a glove on her tunes.”

At press time, tickets for the Sunday, June 30 performance was nearly sold out. Central Park Performing Arts Center website.