One day I lost my temper, slammed a kitchen cabinet door and broke a beautiful large pane of 1920's etched glass. Each of the three cabinet doors had a panel of this glass in my house, and of course I broke the middle one. It wasn't even my house, the landlord would kill me. Forlorn, because obviously I couldn't just run to Builder's Square and get a replacement, I started calling around, going one by one through the yellow pages, and then running around showing every glass and antique glass dealer a shard sample of the broken window. From everyone I heard the same thing-
"Wow... They haven't made this for 70 years, There's a small chance you might find a surviving little piece, but nothing like the size you need."
Not willing to give up in the face of adversity- where there's a will there's a way- I hoped desperately- at last, and literally, the last person I called, was an old geezer who had a chaotic scrap yard way on the edge of town. He told me over the phone "Hmmm, I remember seeing somethin' like that out in this old barn I got, why don't you come on out at take a look."
So I drove out to his place. This guy was about 75 years old, straight off the corn fields of Oklahoma. He told me to follow him down the road in his beat up old Chevy truck, and we drove further out into the sticks and eventually pulled up to this fence surrounding an old barn house that looked like it had been bombed during the Depression. A good gust of wind could easily blow the place right over.
We walked down the dirt path to this old shack, he unlocked the place, and we walked inside, the place dimly lit by sunlight barely filtering in through the open door. There sitting against the dusty planks of a wall, was a gigantic piece of my etched glass, an exact match for my kitchen cabinets.
He wrapped it up in cardboard, told me to take good care of it as I loaded it into the back of my station wagon "'Cause you ain't gonna find anything like that again!" As I got behind the wheel and turned the ignition, the old farmer lit his pipe, pulled down his hat, waved bye and told me
"A while back I was dying, literally. My health was really really bad, mostly from drug abuse, bad diet, and just not taking care of myself. I was extremely depressed, in and out of the hospital from cocaine abuse, and frankly I didn't want to live much. I was playing a jazz festival in Spain, but mostly ready to kill myself, still not happy or in very good shape. Right after the concert three guys came up to me and confronted me. It was John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter. [In case you don't know, these are 3, at one time, among the greatest legendary GIANTS of modern music in this point in history. Of course, Larry has played and knew, and was friend of them all, he is no slouch either and has his place in jazz history as well].
John says, "We're here for you Larry, we've lost too many great musicians already, and you've got to hang in there- we can't lose you too, though we know it's tough for you right now."
Then Herbie has got this little book of Buddhist chants he's reading from, he and Wayne are Buddhists, and John says, "Look, do this mantra, it doesn't matter what it means, but I do it, and it's THOUSANDS of years old, and it works whether you believe it or not. [I learned it from a friend- it's supposed to bring you whatever you want, prosperity, money, happiness, you name it, all purpose link to the Universal Energy System Delivery Warehouse].
Then all of a sudden they all started chanting right there backstage "...Nam myoho renge kyo, nam myoho renge kyo, nam myoho renge kyo......" This went on for some time these three guys standing there, Herbie with this little book and a funny looking cap on, and mumbling this weird ass mantra. Hey, they're my friends....
Well, I figured, what have I got to lose, and so with John's advice (and maybe these guys were really putting this positive energy in me with this mantra, hey....), I kept up the mantra over a period of time whenever I thought about it.
I'm here today to tell you, it worked. It saved my life. I stopped taking drugs, I'm as clean as a whistle, I'm recording, playing concerts, I got my act together, and I feel better than I ever have in my entire life. It might sound unbelievable or corny as hell, but that old mantra is magic."
So, that's what Larry Coryell said. I figure, any mantra good enough for John McLaughlin is good enough for me. So I occasionally indulge myself. I like that I have absolutely NO IDEA what it means, and that it doesn't in fact mean anything as far as I am concerned except that these guys I admire do it, and so I have something in common with them. A secret club kind of. Maybe you might find it helpful as well from time to time, or would like to join our secret magic mantra club yourself. But don't tell anybody!