Biography
For more than 60 years saxophonist Charles Lloyd has loomed large over the music world with both his presence and his occasional absence. Lloyd was born in in 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he apprenticed with jazz and blues legends including Phineas Newborn, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. King. While attending the University of Southern California in the late-1950s, Lloyd performed with prominent artists on the Los Angeles jazz scene including Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, and Gerald Wilson. In 1960, Lloyd became the music director in the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and later joined the Cannonball Adderley Sextet for a two-year stint before leaving to focus on his own career as a leader.
Lloyd signed with Columbia and released his debut album Discovery! in 1964. In 1965 he formed his first great Quartet with a young pianist named Keith Jarrett along with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The Quartet’s first album Dream Weaver for Atlantic was followed by Forest Flower: Live at Monterey in 1967, a wildly successful album that became one of the first million-sellers in jazz and catapulted Lloyd to international fame.
The Quartet went on to perform at rock festivals and venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco where they co-headlined bills with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, while Lloyd also collaborated with the likes of the Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, and The Doors. Then at the peak of his popularity he unexpectedly and voluntarily decided to leave the music world and disappeared to a Big Sur retreat for most of the 1970s. He stopped touring and would play saxophone for the trees and occasionally collaborate with poets and authors like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ken Kesey.
Lloyd re-emerged briefly in the early 1980s to help the French pianist Michel Petrucciani begin his career, releasing a single album for Blue Note featuring Petrucciani (A Night In Copenhagen) before disappearing again until 1989 when he began a fruitful 25-year relationship with ECM Records. Lloyd’s 16 albums for ECM re-established the saxophonist as one of the leading creative voices in jazz, and found him collaborating with artists including Bobo Stenson, John Abercrombie, Billy Higgins, Brad Mehldau, Geri Allen, and Zakir Hussain, and forming his acclaimed New Quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers, and Eric Harland.
When Don Was became head of Blue Note in 2011, he invited Lloyd to record for the label. Lloyd ultimately accepted the invitation, with a mission in mind: “I want to stretch my wings wider and find new thermals to soar on. It is all a continuation of my search and service in sound.”
Lloyd’s 2015 Blue Note release Wild Man Dance was an album-length suite composed for a unique group comprised of pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Joe Sanders, drummer Gerald Cleaver, Greek lyra virtuoso Sokratis Sinopoulos, and Hungarian cimbalom maestro Miklós Lukács. For his 2016 album I Long to See You, Lloyd formed a new band called The Marvels featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz along with Rogers and Harland. In 2017, Lloyd released Passin’ Thru, a passionate live recording that marked the 10th anniversary of the New Quartet and prompted the Los Angeles Times to declare him “an artist with a focus still firmly fixed forward. Lloyd sounds as if he’s just getting started.” In 2018, Lloyd reconvened The Marvels with the addition of singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams for Vanished Gardens, a transcendent collaboration that wove together several threads of American music (Jazz, Blues, Americana, Country, and Rock) into a thrilling and uplifting new musical hybrid. The 2020 album 8: Kindred Spirits (Live from The Lobero) documented his magnificent 80th birthday concert with Clayton, Rogers, Harland, guitarist Julian Lage, and special guests organist Booker T. Jones and bassist Don Was. Lloyd reconvened The Marvels for his 2021 album Tone Poem, the vinyl edition of which was the first new release to be featured as part of the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Series.
Lloyd’s life story was powerfully told in the 2014 documentary Arrows Into Infinity. He was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2015, and received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music. In 2016, Lloyd was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, and The Atlantic published the profile “The Re-Flowering: Charles Lloyd’s Second Golden Age,” proffering that “The jazz saxophonist went from 1960s pop stardom to years of self-imposed exile, but he’s now producing some of the best music of his career.”
Releases
The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow - Charles Lloyd
Trios: Sacred Thread - Charles Lloyd
Trios: Ocean - Charles Lloyd
Trios: Chapel - Charles Lloyd
Tone Poem - Charles Lloyd
8: Kindred Spirits (Live from The Lobero) - Charles Lloyd
Vanished Gardens (featuring Lucinda Williams) - Charles Lloyd
Passin’ Thru - Charles Lloyd
I Long To See You - Charles Lloyd
Wild Man Dance - Charles Lloyd
One Night With Blue Note Preserved, Vol. 4 - Charles Lloyd - Michel Petrucciani - Stanley Jordan
A Night In Copenhagen - Charles Lloyd
Videos
Charles Lloyd On “Broken Record” With Guest Host Don Was: Blue Note Records 85th Anniversary Series
Charles Lloyd “The Ghost of Lady Day” (Live)
Charles Lloyd “Booker’s Garden” (Live)
Charles Lloyd “First Look” with Don Was
Charles Lloyd Discusses “Trios: Sacred Thread” on “First Look” with Don Was
Charles Lloyd Discusses “Trios: Ocean” on “First Look” with Don Was
Charles Lloyd “Jaramillo Blues” (Official Video)
Charles Lloyd Discusses “Trios: Chapel” on “First Look” with Don Was
CHARLES LLOYD “BLOOD COUNT” (VISUALIZER)
Charles Lloyd “First Look” with Don Was
SPOTLIGHT
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CHARLES LLOYD “THE SKY WILL STILL BE THERE TOMORROW”
By Adolfo Alzuphar Unsettled by the state of the world in 2020, Charles Lloyd began conceiving of a musical offering in the form of a new studio recording featuring a new band, a quartet of unrepressed sensibility that would be a first-time convening of four distinctive voices with the legendary saxophonist joined by pianist Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Brian Blade. In... read more
CHARLES LLOYD “TRIOS: OCEAN”
Charles Lloyd has long been a free spirit, master musician, and visionary. For more than six decades the legendary saxophonist and composer has loomed large over the music world, and at 84 years old he remains both at the height of his powers and as prolific as ever. Early on Lloyd saw how placing the improvised solo in interesting and original contexts could provoke greater freedom of expression... read more
CHARLES LLOYD “TRIOS: CHAPEL”
Charles Lloyd has long been a free spirit, master musician, and visionary. For more than six decades the legendary saxophonist and composer has loomed large over the music world, and at 84 years old he remains both at the height of his powers and as prolific as ever. Early on Lloyd saw how placing the improvised solo in interesting and original contexts could provoke greater freedom of expression... read more
THE TONE POETRY OF CHARLES LLOYD
To regard a line of improvisation in the key of Charles Lloyd is to walk a spiral from the peaceful depths of one’s soul to the chaotic terrains beyond it. The tenor saxophone with which he is most commonly associated is a scepter that sounds, in his words, “a clarion call to truth and love.” A tender warrior committed to restoration, he sees no lines of demarcation in his music: “That... read more
CHARLES LLOYD “8: KINDRED SPIRITS (LIVE FROM THE LOBERO)”
The legendary saxophonist, composer, and jazz mystic Charles Lloyd celebrated his 80th birthday on March 15, 2018, at his hometown venue, Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre, with an unprecedented grouping of musical friends including guitarist Julian Lage, pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland, with special guests organist Booker T. Jones and bassist Don Was... read more
CHARLES LLOYD & THE MARVELS + LUCINDA WILLIAMS “VANISHED GARDENS”
When Lucinda Williams joined Charles Lloyd & The Marvels at UCLA’s Royce Hall in April 2017, the musicians beamed with unbridled joy. Same for the fans fortunate to witness, to share the depths of the artistry and exploration happening on stage. There were tears, too, as Williams reached inside herself for expressions of love, longing and loss in equal measures. But the image that remains... read more
CHARLES LLOYD: PASSIN’ THRU
Saxophonist, flutist, composer, and jazz mystic Charles Lloyd has made music in myriad different ensemble settings over the course of his illustrious career. His 2015 Blue Note release Wild Man Dance was an album-length suite composed for a group comprised of pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Joe Sanders, drummer Gerald Cleaver, Greek lyra virtuoso Sokratis Sinopoulos, and Hungarian cimbalom... read more
CHARLES LLOYD DIVES DEEPER INTO THE OCEAN OF SOUND
In 2015, iconic saxophonist Charles Lloyd continued his innovative trajectory into the upper spheres of jazz and the spiritual realms of wonder and beauty. He basked in a banner year that included receiving the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters honor and marking a triumphant return to Blue Note Records with his remarkable live album Wild Man Dance. While talking about his “call of... read more
CHARLES LLOYD’S WILD MAN DANCE
Over 50 years into an already legendary career, 2015 is shaping up to be a momentous year for Charles Lloyd. The esteemed saxophonist and composer will be awarded the NEA Jazz Masters honor celebrating his remarkable career as well as recognizing his creative brilliance in the pantheon of such other living and vital jazz legends as Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter. Another career landmark will... read more
News
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CHARLES LLOYD SHARES “BOOKER’S GARDEN” FROM NEW STUDIO ALBUM FEATURING JASON MORAN, LARRY GRENADIER & BRIAN BLADE
Charles Lloyd has shared “Booker’s Garden,” an enchanting homage to Booker Little, the late great trumpeter and fellow Memphis native who was a childhood friend of Lloyd’s. The piece—which features Lloyd on flute, Jason Moran on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Brian Blade on drums—appears on his... read more
CHARLES LLOYD SHARES NEW SINGLE “MONK’S DANCE” FROM FORTHCOMING DOUBLE ALBUM
Charles Lloyd has shared “Monk’s Dance,” a joyful new single from his latest musical offering The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow. The majestic double album will be released March 15 on the legendary saxophonist’s 86th birthday. One of the most significant musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries, Lloyd... read more
CHARLES LLOYD ANNOUNCES NEW DOUBLE ALBUM “THE SKY WILL STILL BE THERE TOMORROW” FEATURING JASON MORAN, LARRY GRENADIER & BRIAN BLADE
Charles Lloyd returns with his latest musical offering, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow, a majestic double album of new studio recordings from the legendary saxophonist which will be released on March 15, Lloyd’s 86th birthday. One of the most significant musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries, Lloyd remains... read more
CHARLES LLOYD “TRIOS: SACRED THREAD” OUT NOV. 18; 3RD “TRIO OF TRIOS” ALBUM FEATURING JULIAN LAGE & ZAKIR HUSSAIN
On November 18, Charles Lloyd will release Trios: Sacred Thread, the third and final album in his Trio of Trios series, an expansive project that presents the legendary saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master in three different trio settings. Trios: Sacred Thread, which features Lloyd with guitarist Julian Lage and... read more
CHARLES LLOYD “TRIOS: OCEAN” OUT SEPT. 23; SECOND ALBUM IN “TRIO OF TRIOS” SERIES
On September 23, Charles Lloyd will release Trios: Ocean, the second album in his Trio of Trios series, an expansive project that presents the legendary saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master in three different trio settings. Trios: Ocean, which features Lloyd with pianist Gerald Clayton and guitarist Anthony Wilson, is... read more
LEGENDARY SAXOPHONIST CHARLES LLOYD TO RELEASE EXPANSIVE “TRIO OF TRIOS” SERIES
Blue Note Records has announced Trio of Trios, an expansive new project by the legendary saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master Charles Lloyd. As a sound seeker, Lloyd’s restless creativity has perhaps found no greater manifestation than on his latest masterwork which encompasses three albums each presenting him in a... read more
JAZZ FOUNDATION OF AMERICA BENEFIT ALBUM “RELIEF” OUT SEPT. 24
A consortium of jazz labels – Blue Note, Concord, Mack Avenue, Nonesuch, and Verve – has joined forces for Relief, an all-star compilation of previously unreleased music to be issued on LP, CD and digitally on September 24, aiding the Jazz Foundation of America’s ongoing efforts to aid musicians affected by the... read more
CHARLES LLOYD & THE MARVELS COVER LEONARD COHEN
Charles Lloyd & The Marvels have released “Anthem,” a gorgeous cover of the Leonard Cohen song that appears on the band’s forthcoming album Tone Poem out March 12 on Blue Note Records. It’s the second single to be revealed from the album following a rollicking version of Ornette Coleman’s... read more
TONE POET AUDIOPHILE VINYL REISSUE SERIES 2021-2022 LINE-UP
Blue Note Records has announced the upcoming 2021-2022 line-up for the acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, which will kick off March 12 with Charles Lloyd & The Marvels’ new album Tone Poem, the first-ever new release to be included in the series. Fittingly, it was Lloyd who first dubbed Harley... read more
CHARLES LLOYD & THE MARVELS RELEASE “RAMBLIN'” FROM NEW ALBUM “TONE POEM” OUT MARCH 12
Charles Lloyd & The Marvels have released “Ramblin’,” a rollicking version of Ornette Coleman’s tune which is the first single from the legendary saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master Charles Lloyd’s forthcoming album Tone Poem out March 12. The vinyl edition of the album will be the first new release to be... read more
