# Charles Lloyd marks 80th birthday with new Blue Note album: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/02/03/charles-lloyd-marks-80th-birthday-with-new-blue-note-album-video/
- Published: 2018-02-03T11:02:49+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**US jazz saxophone legend Charles Lloyd celebrates his 80th birthday on 15 March
2018, and will mark the milestone with a series of special concerts, residencies,
festival performances, and the release of a new album for Blue Note Records this
summer.**

The label says “the NEA Jazz Master is entering his ninth decade at a creative peak
in what now stands as a mountainous and formidable career, continuing his lifelong
artistic journey to explore the spiritual realms of wonder and beauty”.

His special birthday concerts include a four-night residency at The Dakota club 
in Minneapolis featuring his band The Marvels on 8-11 March, a one-off special with
dozens of star guests in his home town of Santa Barbara, California on 15 March 
itself, and festival appearances at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Playboy
Festival and he is the Artist In Residence at the Newport Jazz Festival.

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.

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 life story was 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.

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