Sandy Brown Jazz

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Jazz was difficult to come by in the rural Northumberland of the 1960s where (and when) I first became interested in the music as a teenager. Live jazz could be had in Newcastle but that was multiple bus and train journeys away. I couldn’t really afford to buy records so that avenue was closed – besides, we didn’t have a record player. With occasional exceptions, the telly was also a non-starter. That left the radio – or the wireless as my parents still insisted on calling it. In truth, there wasn’t that much jazz on the radio/wireless but I became adept at sniffing out what little there was. We had a reel-to-reel tape recorder on which I would record extracts from programmes such as Jazz Record Requests (still going after all these years) and Jazz on One, presented by Peter Clayton on the newly minted Radio 1 on Sunday nights. I would then play back the tapes over and over again. One of the pieces I recorded and repeatedly played back was called Love Song To A Baby by Charles Lloyd. Even now, over fifty years later, I still find myself humming it from time to time.

I think I must have come across Love Song To A Baby some time in 1968, a year in which Charles Lloyd was becoming a very big name indeed. Born in 1938 in Memphis, he learned saxophone as a child and, by his teenage years, was playing with both jazzmen and blues performers including Howlin’ Wolf and BB King. In 1956, he moved to Los Angeles to study for a degree in music. He had a particular interest in the music of Bela Bartok but, even as a student, he was playing jazz in the clubs of the west coast. He began a teaching career but, in the early 1960s, switched to becoming a professional musician playing first with Chico Hamilton and then, in 1964, joining the Cannonball Adderley Sextet. His skills, both as player and composer, began to be noticed and he started recording as a leader. In 1966, he formed his own quartet with himself on saxophone and flute, Keith Jarrett (piano), Jack DeJohnette (drums) and Cecil McBee (bass).

It’s around this time that he wrote and, with his quartet, recorded Love Song To A Baby. Here's a live version from 1966:

The Charles Lloyd Quartet rapidly became very popular with a new sound which incorporated other musical genres including (and this was then strikingly unusual) elements of rock. In 1966, the Quartet played a much acclaimed set at the Monterey Jazz Festival. A recording of the performance was made and extracts later released on an album called Forest Flower: Live At Monterey. You can hear part of the long title track here:

The album was a huge success and it became one of the first jazz records to sell over a million copies. Lloyd had hit upon a formula which appealed to both jazz fans and the new audiences emerging for rock bands such as The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. The Quartet was the first jazz group to appear at one of the most famous of all rock venues, the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. It also toured extensively including a memorable trip to the Soviet Union in 1967. Also in 1967, Charles Lloyd was voted “Jazz Artist of the Year” by Downbeat magazine.

And then in 1970, at the height of his fame, Lloyd suddenly brought it all to a stop. Unhappy and disillusioned with fame, he disbanded the quartet and retreated to the Big Sur in California. De Johnette and Jarrett joined Miles Davis. Lloyd became a transcendental meditation instructor and almost completely disappeared from the jazz scene for most of the 1970s. He did, however, occasionally record and tour with the Beach Boys.

In the early 1980s, the French pianist, Michel Petrucciani visited Charles Lloyd in California. The visit inspired Lloyd to make a comeback: “I was here planning to not play again”, he told Petrucciani, “you triggered me. I heard this beauty in you and I said, ‘well I have to take you ‘round the world ‘cos there’s something so beautiful’, it was like providence calling”. Lloyd and Petrucciani then toured and recorded together. The collaboration proved to be a major success.

Here they are live in 1985, joined by Lloyd’s old sparring partners, DeJohnette and McBee, playing Lloyd’s composition, Tone Poem:

Once again, though, Charles Lloyd turned his back on success. When he felt that he had done all he could for Petrucciani’s career, he retreated to the Big Sur. And there he stayed until 1986 when he fell dangerously ill. On his recovery, he embarked on a second comeback. In 1989, he signed with ECM and, over the next 25 years, recorded a number of albums on the label with a variety of different musicians. He also toured extensively. It’s fair to say that the critics were often ambivalent about Lloyd’s work over these years but there were some notable exceptions. His 1998 album, Voice In The Night, for example, on which he teamed up with a stellar cast of John Abercrombie, Dave Holland and Billy Higgins, was widely praised.

Here’s a clip of Charles Lloyd in action during his ECM years playing Sombrero Sam in Vienna in 1999. Lloyd is on flute with John Abercrombie (guitar), Jeffrey Littleton (bass) and Billy Hart (drums).

Although the critics may not always have been kind, Charles Lloyd’s stature in the jazz world is such that he has always been able to attract top musicians to work with him going right back to DeJohnette and Jarrett in the 1960s. At ECM, he often worked with John Abercrombie and Billy Higgins and also collaborated with the likes of Bobo Stenson, Brad Mehldau and Geri Allen. In 2007, he formed his so-called New Quartet made up of rising stars of a new generation: Jason Moran (piano), Reuben Rogers (bass) and Eric Harland (drums). The New Quartet released some well received albums including Rabo De Nube in 2008 and Mirror in 2010.

In 2015, Charles Lloyd, now in his late seventies, moved on to pastures new and signed with Blue Note Records. One of his projects with Blue Note is a band called Charles Lloyd and The Marvels. This may sound like something out of Motown but it is fundamentally a jazz ensemble, albeit one which brings in influences from other genres including country music. The band is made up of Reuben Rogers (bass), Eric Harland (drums), Bill Frisell (guitar) and Greg Leisz (steel guitar) as well as Lloyd himself on saxophone and flute.  The band’s first outing on Blue Note was the album, I Long To See You, released in 2016, with guest appearances by Norah Jones and Willie Nelson. This was followed by Vanished Gardens in 2018, a collaboration with country singer, Lucinda Williams.
 
Both albums were favourably received but nothing prepared the jazz world for the release in 2021 of the band’s third album, Tone Poem. This has proved to be a major critical success. It was, for example, Jazzwise’s album of the year, and John Fordham in The Guardian included it in his 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2021. At the age of 83, Charles Lloyd has found himself with a hit on his hands and right back at the centre of the jazz action. The master of comebacks has done it again.

It’s not hard to see why Tone Poem has gone down so well. It is a splendid album which manages to pull off the trick of being both original and accessible. It kicks off with two Ornette Coleman tracks: Peace and Ramblin’. Charles Lloyd does something magical with these complex and rather awkward tunes injecting them with warmth and joy. Ramblin’, in particular, shows the band at its best and exemplifies its successful blending of jazz and country music. A major element in this is Greg Leisz’s steel guitar on which he conjures up all of country music’s distinctive effects including that most evocative of American sounds, the train whistle. However, there are other influences at work: Bill Frisell contributes some driving rock guitar and Eric Harland’s drumming also has a rock tinge. It is up to Lloyd to provide the jazz input which he does triumphantly with nimble work on tenor saxophone often drifting into a compelling free jazz mode. Complete with whoops and shouts from band members, the whole piece is a sort of jazz hoedown - Ornette Coleman meets the Grand Ole Opry. You can listen to Ramblin' here:

Tone Poem also includes three Charles Lloyd compositions, including the title track. This is the same tune that he played with Petrucciani back in 1985 but this version begins with a long reflective introduction, a conversation between Lloyd on saxophone and Harland. The other instruments then join in setting up a wistful tone before launching into the tune proper which is light and upbeat. This is proper jazz, no hyphenated fusion here – just jazz-jazz, although even the slightest wail from Leisz’s sublime guitar can bring a tinge of country to the mix. Lloyd is to the fore throughout and his playing is superb showing he still has the chops – and stamina - even at 83.

The second Lloyd number on the album is Dismal Swamp, a curiously named piece given that it rocks along optimistically, not dismal at all. Lloyd plays flute, showing he has lost none of his mastery of the instrument which has made him one of the great jazz flautists. Frisell and Leisz complement each other so well that their playing often sounds like one super guitar at work.

The final Charles Lloyd composition is Prayer, a slow, contemplative piece on which Lloyd is back on tenor horn. There is a yearning to his playing which includes passages of a freer and intense discordance introducing a pleading note entirely appropriate to what after all is a prayer. Reuben Rogers takes a bow to his bass accentuating the mood. Harland’s drumming is upbeat providing an effective counterpoint to the unhurried meditative playing of the other musicians.

The remaining tracks on Tone Poem are compositions from an eclectic mix of other writers. Monk’s Mood, for example, is by Thelonious Monk and is another piece of cool jazz-jazz with Lloyd giving a sustained performance on tenor. Bill Frisell contributes an impressive solo with Leisz, as always, providing sterling support in the background. Ay Amor is by the Cuban singer/songwriter, Bola de Nieve and is an attractive, gently swinging lilt with Frisell and Leisz in Spanish mood on their guitars. Lady Gabor is from the pen of Gabor Szabo, one of Lloyd’s old sparring partners right back to when they were both members of Chico Hamilton’s group. Lloyd plays flute in an infectious, foot tapping romp driven along by some brilliant drumming from Harland. The guitars contribute to something of a country rock vibe, and the piece ends up in a controlled free-for-all.

Listen to Lady Gabor:

Finally, Anthem is a version of the Leonard Cohen song, played as a jazz-country-rock ballad. Lloyd is in particularly fine form on tenor. He dances around the tune giving it all sort of ornamental twists and turns but never straying too far from it. As with all the tracks on Tone Poem, the instruments synchronise perfectly, and the musicians feed off each other in a way which suggests they enjoy each other’s company and have formed a clear collective understanding.

Here is a promo video for Tone Poem in which Charles Lloyd recites a poem with references to the album’s tracks.

For a flavour of what Charles Lloyd and the Marvels are like live, here they are at the Lincoln Center, New York in 2016 playing La Llorona:

My daughter bought me Tone Poem for Christmas and it has hardly left my CD player since. Several of its tracks have joined Love Song To A Baby in my memory bank of hummable jazz. It is yet another peak in the fascinating career of Charles Lloyd with its unique trajectory of triumphs, retirements, doldrums and comebacks. With the Marvels, he seems to have hit on yet another winning formula and one wonders if there is still more to come. I hope so.

Charles Lloyd and the Marvels are due to appear this coming July at the Love Supreme Festival in Lewes and the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam. There’s more about Mr. Lloyd on his website here.

Charles Lloyd in 2000 - Photograph courtesy of Brian O'Connor, imagesofjazz.

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