I’ve been enjoying Charles Lloyd’s music for a long time now with Lift Every Voice (2002), Vanished Gardens (2018) and last year’s The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow being big favourites in this house and this new album shows no diminution in his imagination or his powers as a player. He experimented with differently voiced trios earlier in this decade and, I suppose, this could be regarded as another step on that road with the unusual line up of sax/piano/guitar providing space for all whilst also giving a different sound to the ensemble playing. The album includes some cover versions, some new tunes and others brought back from previous projects to give nearly 100 minutes of music with plenty of moments that catch the ear and have you thinking “ooh, that’s good”.
We open with a relaxed, pastoral reading of Abide With Me; Lloyd’s sax sounding full
toned and rich, Moran’s piano beautifully decorative. That piano provides the
skeleton onto which Lloyd hangs a rolling wave of a solo during Hina Hanta, the way of peace. Moran’s
solo is carefully picked out single notes and delicate chording with Sewell’s
electric guitar scratching away occasionally at the margins. Sewell’s solo is a
gentle blues, more a duet with Moran, until Lloyd floats in a breathy, bluesy
sax; for all their delicacy, this group has a wide screen sound. Being
drummerless, Figure in Blue, memories of
Duke is probably the gentlest Latin you’ll ever hear with Lloyd’s shifting
sands as the focus moves from his sax to Moran’s solo that incorporates Evans’
fluidity with an Ellington pulse. It’s romantic enough to pass as a heretofore
hidden Strayhorn classic.
Desolation Sound opens as a case of
nominative determinism with Lloyd’s sax sounding all alone and blue but Moran’s
warm and humane piano sound pulls him back from the edge and a degree of hope
and optimism has crept in by the close. Ruminations
sounds like a collective improvisation with the trio challenging or
underpinning each other or each escaping into a sense of space of their own
finding, all at a stately pace. The piano is percussive, the sax wails and the
guitar dances in a spiral before a longer rumination from Lloyd – low key,
questing; a lone voice on a journey. Chulahoma
is altogether crunchier with Sewell’s whirling guitar over his own heavy
backing riffs until Lloyd comes howling through, fiery and argumentative, toing
and froing with the guitarist’s deep blue lines. Delicacy returns for Song My Lady Sings, the first of two
tributes to Billie Holiday. Romantic, lush piano rises and falls like an
American Smooth; Sewell provides subtle support before seamlessly moving to
front of stage for some very Metheny-esque soloing. Lloyd is equally soft toned
with his flight of a solo; celebrating, not mourning. It’s just lovely.
The tragedy does come out in the second disc
opener, The Ghost of Lady Day, which
opens with a sax line that is a second cousin to Strange Fruit, around which Moran builds and rolls, ebbing and
flowing in his support. Sewell adds some angular guitar which stretches the
imagery to the horizon, echoing the cries of those who suffered under Jim Crow
laws. Lloyd vents his fury and frustration in his sharpest playing on the
album. Blues for Langston is delta
blues on electric guitar, heavy on the top strings but leaving space aplenty
for inventive soloing. Lloyd’s flute lightens the tone and Moran rolls some
piano into the mix. Not a million miles from classic Canned Heat. Heaven, a Duke Ellington piece is a
languid summer evening of a piece and the Ellington connection continues with
his Black Butterfly; a lush romantic
ballad with Lloyd foregrounding his rich, round, full tone, darting and
leading; the most subtle of swing.
The brief Ancient
Rain inspired by Lloyd’s Choctaw heritage him calling out to nature on
taragato, adding a totally different sound into the mix, wooden and hollow,
echoing and more natural than the sax. The final tribute piece on the album is
for the late Zakir Hussain who played with Lloyd as recently as 2020 on the Trio: Sacred Thread album. Short echoing
sax lines take the front of stage with Moran adding short phrases of his own.
Sewell channels India in both his drone and finely picked and held notes. The
piece is an expression of Lloyd’s grief and there is despair and a deep sense
of loss in his playing. West Side Story’s
Somewhere closes out the album. Moran’s shifting piano grounds Lloyd’s
soloing, coloured by the hope in the song, plays with the melody and adds
flourishes to raise that hope just a little bit higher.
Lloyd has been very prolific in this last
decade releasing 11 albums since 2015, some of which were doubles so you can’t
doubt his productivity. The consistent high quality, experimentation and
imagination makes you feel that, even at 87, he could go on forever.
Figure in Blue is released through
the usual outlets on CD, LP and DL. Dave
Sayer
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