The Charles Lloyd Blog

Hidden in Plain Sight

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:41:00 +0000

For more than forty years, Charles Lloyd has been the small combo leader making distinctively impressionistic and soulful kind of small combo jazz. His tenor's delicate, almost alto-like timbre is instantly recognizable from just a single note. His prolific periods of the late sixties and since the late eighties have produced consistently strong albums. Many stars have played in Lloyd's band, and in many cases, gotten their major career boosts playing behind him. Jack deJohnette, Cecil, McBee, Keith Jarrett and Michael Pettruciani all gigged in his group. And yet, Lloyd is oddly not often considered when the subject of major living figures in jazz comes up.

Charles Lloyd is the jazz legend who is hidden in plain sight.

There have been nearly an album a year from Lloyd since he came of of semi-retirement and signed with ECM Records about twenty years ago. It could be a daunting task just to decide where to start with his discography with that label since they're all serious efforts. When his latest Rabo de Nube was issued this past March, I was tempted to forgo writing about it, just because as good as I knew it was going to be, it's still "just another Charles Lloyd" album. That is, until I actually listened to it.

Click here for more at somethingelsereviews.com.

Make Your Reservations Today!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:09:00 +0000

The lakeside Eurotel hotel in Montreux is preparing to open the doors of a 'Charles Lloyd Room' to coincide with the annual jazz festival. Named after the saxophonist who was the first international artist to perform at the event 41 years ago, the restored room offers fans of jazz and 1960s memorabilia a time-stood-still experience.

Click here for more info.

Charles Lloyd Performs at the New York Society for Ethical Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:38:00 +0000

Charles Lloyd was responsible for a ton of words at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on Saturday night. At the outset of his JVC Jazz Festival concert, he called up Charles Simic, the poet laureate of the United States, who read a handful of nocturnal poems. Later, for a second encore, Mr. Lloyd recited passages from the Bhagavad-Gita over a gentle drone. And during the pauses between songs he was a torrent of allusive patter, drawing on a fount of vintage hipster recollections.

Click here for more on Charles Lloyd at the New York Times.

How it's done

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Last night, Memphis native Charles Lloyd turned in a magical display of high-calibre improvisation at Enwave Theatre. Backed by a stellar collection of young bucks – pianist Jason Moran (who worked the piano over like it owed him money), bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland – the 70-year-old flautist/saxist was as vigorous and inventive as anything going.

Click here for more on Charles Lloyd in the Toronto Star.

New Summer Dates Just Added

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:16:00 +0000

New Quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and
Eric Harland:

July 8th The Arena, Milano, Italy

Duo with Jason Moran
19 Soulliac, France
20 Garana Jazz Festival, Garana, Roumania

Click here for more tour dates for Charles Lloyd Summer '08.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival from JazzInkBlog

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:33:00 +0000

"Charles Lloyd and his companions are nomadic storytellers, wandering through centuries and continents."

Click here for more at JazzInkBlog.

Copenhagen Jazz Festival, July 4 to 13, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:20:00 +0000

Charles Lloyd Quartet

70-year-old saxophonist Charles Lloyd has played with some exceptional pianists in the course of his long career, starting with Phineas Newborn in his home town, with Joe Zawinul in the Cannonball Adderley group, and with Keith Jarrett, whom Lloyd introduced in his pioneering group of the 1960s. Subsequent Lloyd quartet pianists have included Michel Petrucciani, Bobo Stenson, Brad Mehldau, and Geri Allen. The latest incarnation of the Charles Lloyd Quartet includes the brilliant Jason Moran who finds his own, exciting way to play inside Lloyd's musical concepts as can be heard on the quartet's new (and brilliant) ECM release entitled “Rabo de Nube".

More about the Copenhagen Jazz Festival at All About Jazz.

Jazz this pure is hard to come by in 2008.

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:39:00 +0000

Click here for more on Rabo de Nube.

Love for Lloyd: Jason Moran on Charles Lloyd

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:34:00 +0000

Charles falls in line with some of the great saxophonists I’ve gotten to work with, and he approaches the music with such openness. I like playing with leaders who let you bring what you’re going to bring to the table, and interpret the music however you’d like. And you’d think in jazz that that would be a popular notion, but it really is uncommon for leaders to actually, truthfully live by their word. And Charles is a great promoter of free-thinking music, and letting it develop on the spot. So every concert we play, each night it would go into different territories, and it just stayed open that way. He’s got great love . . .

Click here for more of Jason Moran's ruminations on Charles Lloyd.

Prometheus Gets 98 out of 100 - jazz.com

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:47:00 +0000

TRACK
Prometheus

RATING: 98/100
“Prometheus” borrows its thematic material from an older Lloyd composition “Hej Da!,” yet he allows his new group the freedom and space to make their own sense out of their leader’s tradition. Lloyd sounds invigorated—his shimmering, wide-ranging lines reach far and stretch unseen boundaries, yet magnificently retain an elegant, singing quality.

Click here for the full article.

Charles Lloyd at Seventy - jazz.com

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:43:00 +0000

Charles Lloyd has been called many things—mystical, mesmerizing, a shaman, and even a “tremendous dispenser of ecstasies.” Anyone who has seen him in concert knows that these lofty praises are not at all unjustified.

As he turned seventy years young this weekend, Charles Lloyd celebrated his birthday with the release of a new album for ECM, Rabo de Nube. The album—sincere, moving, and stimulating—is colored by the rainbows of the late 1960s, touched by the time-tested hand of the blues, and sprinkled by an exotic pinch of the Far East. Rabo de Nube continues many long-established traditions in Lloyd’s career and catalog. After releasing seven live records in the 1960s with his classic group, this is only the fourth he has released since, making it much anticipated and appreciated. Recorded in Switzerland in 2007, the new album brings Lloyd back to Europe, where in June 1966 he established himself as arguably the brightest star on the jazz horizon with a breakthrough performance at the Antibes Jazz Festival.

Click here for Matt Leskovic's full blog posting at jazz.com.

Slight Modifications to CL Summer Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:05:00 +0000

July 23 Hyeres, France, duo with Jason Moran
August 2, Vannes, France, Sangam
August 29, Nantes, France, Sangam

The Poetic Charles Lloyd

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:25:00 +0000

There seems to be something almost otherworldly about Charles Lloyd. Steeped in the primeval blues of Memphis and informed by Eastern music and philosophy, Lloyd always pursues his own alchemy. His latest, Rabo de Nube a live set released within days of his seventieth birthday, proves Lloyd’s powers remain undiminished with the passage of years.

U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic contributed original verse for the liner, in an appropriate fit between poet and musician. Simic’s work combines the very real, concrete details of our world with a surreal vision of what lurks around the corner, just out of sight. Lloyd has always been very much of this world, grounded in the blues. Yet he is able to step outside it, with his searching flights of exploration.

Click here for more from j.b. spins.

Charles Lloyd 2008 Summer Tour Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:09:00 +0000

2008 - Summer tour dates;

New Quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland
Sangam with Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland

May
31 Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Healdsburg, CA

New Quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland

June
1 Lobero Theater Santa Barbara, CA
25 Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival, Toronto, Canada
28 New York Ethical Society, JVC NY Jazz Festival
29 Saratoga Jazz Festival, Saratoga NY

July
4 Vienna Opera House, Vienna Austria
10 Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Copenhagen. Denmark
11 North Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands
13 Umbria Jazz Festival, Spoleto, Italy
15 Vitoria Jazz Festival, Vitoria, Spain
16 Villengen, Germany
17 Molde Jazz Festival, Molde, Norway
19 Soulliac, France
20 Garana Jazz Festival, Garana, Roumania

Sangam
30 Hyeres, France

August
1 Les Nuits des Fourvieres, Lyon, France
2 Nantes, France

New Quartet
13 Augsburg, Germany
14 Antwerp, Belgium
16 Oslo, Norway

Sangam
27 Dresden Opera House, Dresden, Germany
29 Vannes, France
30 Willisau, Switzerland

September
4 Cite de la Musique, Paris, France
6 Museu do Oriente, Lisbon, Portugal

Happy Birthday Charles!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Rabo de Nube Reviewed - All About Jazz

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:13:00 +0000

It's fitting that the shimmeringly beautiful Rabo De Nube, which is being released to celebrate reed player Charles Lloyd's 70th birthday on March 15, 2008, is a live album. Lloyd became a star forty years ago with a series of paradigm-shifting live discs recorded on a seemingly never-ending tour of the USA and Europe—seven of them altogether, starting with Forest Flower (Atlantic, 1966) and ending with Soundtrack (Atlantic, 1968).
Intentionally or not, Rabo De Nube, recorded in Switzerland in 2007, and seeped in the same spirit as those momentous earlier performances, goes some way towards completing the circle.

Click here for Chris May's full review at allaboutjazz.com.

Online Preview of Charles Lloyd Quartet - Rabo de Nube

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:26:00 +0000

Click here to listen to Rabo de Nube at Charles Lloyd dot com.
Click here to pre-order Rabo de Nube at Amazon.

2008 Concert Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:21:00 +0000

_________________________________________________

Charles Lloyd New Quartet w/ Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland

March
27 Lensic Theater, Santa Fe, NM
28 Herbst Theater, San Francisco, CA
29 The Athenaeum, La Jolla, CA
30 Catalina's, Los Angeles, CA
31 The Triple Door, Seattle, WA

Trio with Jason Moran and Eric Harland
April
3-6 Blue Note Tokyo, Japan
9 Cully Jazz Festival, Cully, Switzerland

Quartet with Jason, Reuben and Eric

June
1 Lobero Theater, Santa Barbara, CA

July
11 North Sea Jazz Festival, Holland
15 Vitoria Gastiaz Jazz Festival, Vitoria, Spain

Click here for everything Charles Lloyd.

Helio Sequence says: "The best show that I've ever seen"

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:45:00 +0000

"The best show that I've ever seen was the Charles Lloyd Quartet with Reuben Rogers, Geri Allen and the most amazing drummer I've ever seen, Eric Harland. Benjamin and I saw the show at the Portland Jazz Festival by happenstance. A friend of ours had tickets and couldn't go, so he gave them to me. The show blew our minds...it was really a spiritual experience."

Click here for the full article at Glide Magazine.

Charles Lloyd, Anime and Manga

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:12:00 +0000

No idea what a video of Charles Lloyd is doing on this website but it's a great performance.

Lotus Blossom
(Billy Strayhorn)

Charles Lloyd (ts)
Geri Allen (p)
Marc Johnson (b)
Billy Hart (ds)
John Abercrombie (g)

Click here to enjoy.

Charles Lloyd Celebrating His 70th Birthday

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:22:00 +0000

Four days before celebrating his 70th birthday on March 15, 2008, Lloyd will release Rabo de Nube, his 12th recording for ECM and the first from his astounding new quartet. In the spring of 2007, Lloyd formed the new group for his European tour, an exciting formation with pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland. The tour started in Porto, Portugal on April 18 and ended in Dublin on May 11. The concert in Basel was recorded for the new CD and was dubbed by the Swiss press, "the concert of the century."

Click here to read the full article.

The Charles Lloyd Quartet on YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:22:00 +0000

Click here to watch.

Ganga

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:11:00 +0000

Ganga has always been more than an ordinary river. For millions of Indians she is a goddess. Yet the river is exploited as much as she is worshipped.

Ganga is in danger of dying - but if the river dies, will the goddess die too?

The question took Julian on an extraordinary journey from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal.

Click here .

Charles Lloyd and Lift Every Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 05:48:00 +0000

Fascinating podcast on Charles Lloyd and Lift Every Voice.

Click here to enjoy.

Voice in the Night

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffery Morse) — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 05:31:00 +0000

Far and away the best album of Lloyd's surprising artistic comeback in the past decade. He's well-matched by his collaborators and the material is well-chosen -- even the remake of his famous "Forest Flower". (And the Costello/Bacharach tune was a nice if unlikely idea.) This disc was obviously conceived as a bit of a summing-up of Lloyd's career as well as a move forwards, and it works perfectly that way. Fantastic sound, as you might expect from ECM, and did I mention Charles himself is playing better than ever? (More focused, darker, more spiritual.)

Click here for more reviews at RateYourMusic.com .