Charles Lloyd Quartet: Mirror (2010)

Restraint can be more powerful than flexed muscles. This has long been the credo of saxophonist Charles Lloyd. At 72, he’s mellower than ever, yet his music manages to reach deeper. His jazz is meditative, spiritual, and in his new quartet he has found a group of like-minded individuals — pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland. “Mirror’’ is this group’s second album but its first studio effort. For the session, Lloyd gathered a diverse group of tunes — standards, hymns, originals, and even a pop song — and made them cohere. Sometimes, as with “I Fall in Love Too Easily,’’ Lloyd feels no obligation to state the melody overtly. But sometimes, as with the Thelonious Monk ballads “Monk’s Mood’’ and “Ruby, My Dear,’’ the melody is crucial to the performance. Even when the group gets slightly funky, during “The Water Is Wide,’’ Lloyd’s tone remains soft and rounded; Moran, however, lets loose with a seriously bluesy solo. The set’s most surprising number is a cover of the Beach Boys hit “Caroline, No.’’ Lloyd and Moran alternately carry the melody, and then improvise way off it, while Harland plays skittering polyrhythms and Rogers keeps it all anchored. What’s not surprising is that a Lloyd-led group can make the song sound like a jazz standard. (~Steve Greenlee, The Boston Globe, 13 September 2010)

Tracklist:
01 - I Fall in Love Too Easily (Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne) 5:00
02 - Go Down Moses (Traditional) 5:59
03 - Desolation Sound (Charles Lloyd) 7:03
04 - La Llorona (Traditional) 5:35
05 - Caroline, No (Brian Wilson, Tony Asher) 4:02
06 - Monk's Mood (Thelonious Monk) 5:01
07 - Mirror (Charles Lloyd) 6:42
08 - Ruby, My Dear (Thelonious Monk) 5:25
09 - The Water Is Wide (Traditional) 7:19
10 - Lift Every Voice and Sing (James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson) 4:29
11 - Being and Becoming (Charles Lloyd) 7:02
12 - Tagi (Charles Lloyd) 9:17
[Total time: 72:54]
Personnel:
Charles Lloyd: tenor and alto saxophones, voice;
Jason Moran: piano;
Reuben Rogers: bass;
Eric Harland: drums.
Mirror
Hotfile / Uploading @ 320K

Charles Lloyd: In Concert Paris 1967 (1994)

During 1966-1969, Charles Lloyd led one of the most popular groups in jazz, a unit that played at the rock palace Fillmore West in San Francisco and toured the U.S.S.R. Lloyd's music, although generally a bit melodic, was not watered-down and managed to catch on for several years during a time when jazz was at its low point in popularity.

Personnel:

* Charles Lloyd - Flute, Tenor & Alto Saxophone
* Keith Jarrett - piano
* Ron McClure - bass
* Jack DeJohnette – drums
Tracklist:
01 - Days and nights of waiting (Lloyd) - 6:55
02 - Lady Gabor (Szabo) - 12:31
03 - Sweet Georgia brigt (Lloyd) - 32:34

Part 1 - Part 2 (RS) flac

Charles Lloyd: Hyperion with Higgins (2001) [lossless, scans]

The December 1999 sessions that produced The Water Is Wide yielded enough material for a second album. Hyperion With Higgins is the result, and its title reflects the sad fact that Billy Higgins, Lloyd's friend and soul mate and the session's drummer, passed away not long after the music was put to tape. The music's spiritual quality is heightened by the after-the-fact dedication. Quite unlike The Water Is Wide, Hyperion With Higgins is comprised entirely of Lloyd's original compositions, although the same lineup is featured: Lloyd, Higgins, John Abercrombie, Brad Mehldau, and Larry Grenadier. After a couple of fairly straightforward jazz pieces ("Dancing Waters, Big Sur to Bahia" and "Bharati"), the quintet delves into two longer works: "Secret Life of the Forbidden City" and the Coltrane-esque "Miss Jessye." They then romp through the title track, a spirited mid-tempo blues, before tackling the album's centerpiece: the five-part "Darkness on the Delta Suite," an ambitious, free-leaning melange of Eastern and rural blues connotations (with a brilliant solo interlude by Abercrombie). The last two pieces — "Dervish on the Glory B" and "The Caravan Moves On" — depart almost completely from jazz vernacular. The former recalls the upbeat, folk-like drone of the sunset portion of "Forest Flower," while the latter, featuring Lloyd on taragato, evokes not only the Middle Eastern desert, but also the inexorable march of time. Thus does a fitting homage to the departed Higgins conclude this exceptionally focused, all-original statement from Charles Lloyd.

Charles Lloyd: The Water Is Wide (2000) mp3 @ 320K

Charles Lloyd was on a roll in the 1990s, each new CD offering some small surprises. On his new 2000 release, The Water Is Wide, Lloyd boasts a great lineup. Guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Billy Higgins are back from Lloyd's Voice in the Night, but they are joined here by Brad Mehldau and the pianist's regular bassist, Larry Grenadier. The choice of material is also something of a surprise--Ellingtonia, such as "Black Butterfly," "Heaven," and "Lotus Blossom," the Scots folk song "The Water is Wide," Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia," and several appealing Lloyd originals. The mood throughout is meditative, gentle, and carefully considered. Lloyd's tenor is sometimes sensuous, sometimes stark, Mehldau and Abercrombie matching him with minimalist but elegant support. Only on "There is a Balm in Gilead" does the tempo increase, and only on Cecil McBee's composition "Song of Her" does an arrangement become obvious. Yet this is music of great charm, made more so by its understatement and the delicacy of Lloyd's phrasing and the distinctiveness of his tone. Records like this used to come from Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, but there aren't many saxophonists today who could pull off something so straightforward and unpretentious. --John F. Szwed