Charles Lloyd is the last man standing of an inspired 1950s American saxophone generation, which included his late friends and contemporaries John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and the now-retired Sonny Rollins. He once recalled to the Guardian that the free-jazz visionary Coleman had told him in 1956: “Man, you sure can play the saxophone, but that don’t have a lot to do with music.” Lloyd has been searching the world’s songs for the heartfelt secrets beyond technique ever since, and his voice-like sound and intuitive ensemble communion seems to convey more with less with each exquisite new album.
The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow – new and old material played by an all-star lineup – is released on Lloyd’s 86th birthday, 15 March. Backed by pianist/composer Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Brian Blade, this set’s beautiful opener Defiant, Tender Warrior builds a bewitching trance from soft piano wavelets, growling bass accents and snare-pattern whispers before Lloyd’s breathy tenor long-tones and enraptured top-end warbles even begin. Monk’s Dance, a tribute to the pianist and composer whom Lloyd calls “the high priest”, opens on Moran’s free-to-stride piano whirlpools, setups for Lloyd’s whimsical lateral-bop sax solo.
There are lovely flute interludes – the quiveringly harmonised Late Bloom – and sublime sax tone-poems: The Lonely One; the impressionistic and then impassioned Billie Holiday tribute The Ghost of Lady Day; and Lloyd’s account of the African American spiritual There is a Balm in Gilead, previously explored by him and the late drums legend Billy Higgins on 2000’s The Water Is Wide. Lloyd well knows he’s in the twilight of a great career – he recently remarked to Jazzwise that he’s “in the last stages of the journey now”. But you’d never know it from the light and joy glowing through this music.
Also out this month
American saxophonist Chris Potter and a supergroup featuring pianist Brad Mehldau and former Wayne Shorter bass/drums partners John Patitucci and Brian Blade launch Eagle’s Point (Edition). They confirm the mileage remaining in hitching post-bop syntax to the talents of gifted improvisers: the meticulously breakneck Potter solos, Mehldau’s endless rhythm switches on the escalating modulations of the title track, or the tender soprano ballad Aria for Anna. With Inside Colours Live (Jazzwerkstatt), Berlin-based UK pianist/composer Julie Sassoon presents concert recordings of both her elegant jazz-to-minimalism duo music with saxophonist and partner Lothar Ohlmeier, as well as the pair’s gamechanging new trio with their dynamic 18-year-old drummer daughter Mia Ohlmeier. And UK saxophonist/composer Mark Lockheart, member of the great Loose Tubes orchestra and Polar Bear, introduces a generation-crossing band which includes Empirical saxophonist Nathaniel Facey and trumpeter Laura Jurd, for the lyrical yet exhilaratingly jazz-rockish Smiling (Edition).
