This Friday evening and this very place are just right for Charles Lloyd and his music. A very light wind, a bit of humidity still in the air from the day, butterflies and mosquitoes buzzing through the audience, mighty trees, clouds in the sky.
Individual notes, an almost cautious, hesitant approach to the music, free play, then the first saxophone note. First melody fragments, the Charles Lloyd note, we have arrived at the first piece.
Dream Weaver, a very early title by Charles Lloyd, which has undergone many changes over the decades and keeps cropping up at concerts and on records. Dream Weaver, that is the four on stage this evening, who come together from individual sound particles, sounds, tones, chords and melodies, from these individual ideas in this summer atmosphere and create a pattern that is visibly woven together.
At some point they are really there: Above all, the warm, yet distinctive sound of Charles Lloyd’s tenor saxophone, Eric Harland on drums, spreading out a kind of rhythm carpet, with Larry Grenadier on bass, alternating between pulsating and melodic, and of course Jason Moran on the grand piano, at home in the blues, in the jazz tradition and always keen to explore new areas.
Most of the songs that the Charles Lloyd Sky Quartet plays in Tübingen are from the new album, a double CD that was released in March. Sometimes straight, with tempo, Monk’s Dance for example, or haunting, harmonious, dreamy ballads. The music flows, wanders and changes constantly. It goes into long passages in which Lloyd plays the flute and leaves plenty of room for extended solo excursions by Larry Grenadier on bass and Jason Moran on grand piano.
It is clear again and again that Lloyd and his fellow players draw from a huge reservoir of different music. Charles Lloyd is from Memphis, a city on the Mississippi, the city of the blues. Although he is rooted in modern jazz from the 50s and 60s, he has often gone his own way. 1967 represents the ‘Summer of Love’.
Lloyd performed at the Monterey Festival and also played at the Fillmore West in San Francisco during this time. He was in the south of France at the Antibes Jazz Festival and was a headliner at the very first Montreux Jazz Festival.
His band, which included Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, did not care about genre boundaries; the pieces stretched across entire sides of a record. In the 70s, Charles Lloyd disappeared from the scene for a long time and lived on the Pacific coast in Big Sur. He meditated and only occasionally and rather unofficially played with musicians from the Beach Boys.
With a new quartet and supported by the Munich ECM label, Charles Lloyd was “back” at the end of the 80s and has consistently continued to develop his self-contained music.
Since then, the 1938-born musician has been one of the very few musicians who has actively experienced and shaped such a long period of time, namely a good 70 years of jazz and music history. It is the expressive melodies, the warm sound and the combination of different influences that set him apart, his always calm but incredibly stimulating new sound paintings without being guided by fashionable trends.
“We are all souls on a journey through human existence,” is a quote from the “Spiegel” and also describes what you can experience on the Sudhaus stage: a concert where music invites you to let your thoughts and feelings wander, to be inspired. Musicians and audiences, it seems, are impressed and enjoy being on the road with Charles Lloyd.
Now and then the master of warming tones and carrying melodies sits down on a stool next to the grand piano, takes a small sip and seems to smile quietly to himself. You might think he is pleased, as he and his three fellow players have sent this new song on its journey, and it has become a steady but also constantly changing meandering flow of sound.
It doesn’t matter whether the title or the basic composition is 60 years old or has just appeared on the new album. The pieces are called `Beyond Darkness` or `Sky Valley, Spirit of the Forest`. Charles Lloyd’s sound is there, and it doesn’t matter that he is now 86 years old.
His sound is blues, spiritual, jazz – or rather, his music. “I come from a blues background. I’m a bluesman on a spiritual journey!”, he said in an SWR interview a few years ago. `The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow` is the name of the new record. Soothing. And beautiful.
