Not many musicians are as willing to stretch their aesthetic boundaries as Charles Lloyd. Coming up in Memphis R&B, Lloyd also absorbed the angular exploration of the ’60s post-bop avant garde.
He achieved popular success briefly in the late ’60s with forays into rock fusion, then turned in a meditative direction, eventually vanishing from the scene altogether. Emerging in the late ’80s with some powerfully introspective releases, the freshness of his inspiration began to disappear over time.
Now, pairing up with the elegant British guitarist John Abercrombie, and a new rhythm section of bassist Dave Holland and drummer Billy Higgins, Lloyd returns to some of the ground he covered in the late ’60s, exploring the simpler charms of subtle melodies and gentle, even soulful, tempos. While Lloyd’s ’60s bestseller, Forest Flower, remains in print, producer Joel Dorn’s 32 Jazz label has just put out a double release containing the albums that preceded and followed it, Dream Weaver and Love-In.
The second is especially welcome, bringing us a night at the Fillmore West when acid jazz had a slightly different meaning. Back then, Lloyd’s main accomplice in the band was pianist Keith Jarrett, a younger, looser, more soulful Keith Jarrett, whose contributions (especially the funky composition “Sunday Morning”) make Love In really sing. In a similar way, Abercrombie provides the perfect foil for Lloyd now, matching the buzz and slide of Lloyd’s saxophone lines in an uncanny way.
What Lloyd, Abercrombie, and Jarrett all share is the ability to bring a believable, joyful grace to essentially introspective jamming. On Voice in the Night, Lloyd revisits specific compositions (Love In Island Blues” leads off the medley “Pocket Full of Blues”) as well as the strategy of improvising off familiar tunes: a surpisingly beautiful “Here, There, and Everywhere” on Love In, Billy Strayhorn’s “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing” and the Elvis Costello-Burt Bacharach composition, “God Give Me Strength,” on Voice in the Night.
Returning to the site of his earlier success, Lloyd again proves that superb jazz can contain familiar and pleasing musical strategies without losing its improvisatory power. In an age when so much music is being made in deference to categories, we need more musicians like Charles Lloyd, secure enough in the value’ of their own gifts to ignore category altogether.
