Few jazz guitarists recorded more or in a greater variety of styles than Larry Coryell, who passed away in February at the age of 73.

Not counting live albums or compilations, he released over 60 albums, most under his own name, and quite a few co-billed with duet partners or in collaboration with larger ensembles. He explored so many jazz-based genres that categorizing him posed a risk not unlike that faced by the proverbial blind men feeling the elephant.

The eclectic jazz-rock he made in the 1970s with his band The Eleventh House wasn’t the first of its kind, but its popularity proved, despite the grumblings of purists, that fusion was here to stay.

In fairness to the purists, there wasn’t a lot of jazz emerging from Coryell’s early years. His first great track, “The Jam with Albert” (from his second album, Coryell), was rock through and through. He also sang a lot despite his obvious vocal limitations. He quickly, and wisely, decided (as the saying goes) to shut up and play guitar.

Make that “guitars.” As his career gathered momentum, Coryell branched out, eventually recording several of his most striking albums entirely or predominantly unplugged. Together, his 1985 project with the guitarist Emily Remler, is 45 minutes of gently melodic fluidity. Meticulous acoustic-guitar transcriptions of works by Stravinsky comprised his 1983 albums L’Oiseau de Feu, Petrouchka and Le Sacre du Printemps.

The ’80s was also the decade that Coryell kicked drugs. To his dismay, he found he could barely play out from under the influence. “I had to start learning how to play all over again,” he wrote in his autobiography, Improvising: My Life in Music. “Back to the basics: scales, chords, arpeggios, practicing everything slowly and rhythmically.” He also embraced Nichiren Buddhism and became an enthusiastic advocate of chanting “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.”

Another result of his sobriety was that the jazz elements of his music came to the fore. By the time he released Barefoot Man: Sanpaku last October, the rock influences of his youth had been in remission for over three decades.

Even purists will miss him now.

Voice of Asia

Colon cancer claimed the English bassist and vocalist John Wetton in January.

From 1972 (when he joined the art-rock band King Crimson) to 1981 (by which time he’d been a member of Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, U.K., and Wishbone Ash) he appeared destined for permanent journeyman status.

Then, in 1981, he joined Carl Palmer (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer) and Steve Howe and Geoff Downes (of Yes) in the progressive-rock supergroup Asia. Curbing their artier tendencies, the band scored an out-of-the-gates smash when its debut album topped the charts in 1982, powered by the genre-blurring irresistibility of its lead single, “Heat of the Moment.” It became Wetton’s signature vocal performance.

Tempestuous times ensued. In the wake of the commercial underperformance of Asia’s second album (and possibly his struggles with alcohol), Wetton was replaced by ELP’s Greg Lake. Then Wetton was back. Then he was gone again. He wouldn’t return to stay until 2006.

In the meantime, he recorded under his own name. In 2015, he loaded 32 of his strongest solo cuts onto the two-disc The Studio Recordings Anthology Vol. 1. Many of the songs would’ve complemented any of the seven Asia studio albums on which he played and sang.

Three weeks after his death, Frontiers Music released Asia’s umpteenth live album, Symfonia: Live In Bulgaria 2013. “In my opinion,” Wetton said, “the band … never sounded better.”

If anyone’s opinion on the topic mattered, it was his. —A.O.