Thu. Nov 21st, 2024

CD review: Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow – 2024: Video, CD cover

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 at the peak of his powers in the company of a newly assembled quartet of four distinctive voices with the NEA Jazz Master joined by pianist Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Brian Blade.

With The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow—Lloyd’s eleventh Blue Note album and his first new studio recording since the 2017 sessions that yielded his acclaimed releases Vanished Gardens and Tone Poem—he continues his monumental music making, an apex in American art, as a bandleader, a composer, a flutist, and a saxophonist.

The album also gives us first-time recordings of six new Lloyd compositions including the title track, “The Water Is Rising,” “Late Bloom,” “The Ghost of Lady Day,” “Sky Valley, Spirit of the Forest,” and “When the Sun Comes Up, Darkness Is Gone.”

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 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 Spring 2023, around Lloyd’s 85th birthday, the project at long last flowered with the creation of an expansive double album titled The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow. A majestic body of work that finds one of the most significant musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries still at the peak of his powers, the album presents a collection of Lloyd originals new, old, and reimagined.

Related Post