February 19, 2021
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 “Ramblin’” that also featured the legendary saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master with Bill Frisell on guitar, Greg Leisz on pedal steel guitar, Reuben Rogers on bass, and Eric Harland on drums.
Lloyd debuted his collective The Marvels on the 2016 album I Long To See You with special guests Norah Jones and Willie Nelson, and reconvened the band for 2018’s Vanished Gardens which featured Lucinda Williams on half the album. On Tone Poem, his sixth Blue Note album since returning to the label in 2015, Lloyd presents The Marvels without guest vocalists for the first time.
The Marvels’ unique sound weaves several threads of American music—Jazz, Blues, Americana, Country, and Rock—into a thrilling and uplifting musical hybrid apropos of a visionary who sees no lines of demarcation in his music: “That wouldn’t be right for the tradition I serve,” Lloyd says. “You must have your elixir, and the elixir is in sound and tone. When you’re at the feet of the Universe, she will always bless and take care of us. It’s not politicians we need but sages. Many have their hand out for something, but I try to let my heart be filled so I want for nothing. I live in awe, drunk with the music.”
Watch “Tone Poem” (Poem Recitation):
The vinyl edition of Tone Poem will be the first new release to be featured as part of the acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Series with the vinyl supervised by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray, pressed at Record Technology, Inc. (RTI), and packaged in a deluxe Stoughton Printing gatefold tip-on jacket. Fittingly, it was Lloyd who first dubbed Harley the “Tone Poet.” Tone Poem is available for pre-order now on vinyl, CD, and digital download.
