COMPOSERS: Charles Lloyd
LABELS: ECM
ALBUM TITLE: Charles Lloyd Quartet: Rabo de Nube
PERFORMER: Charles Lloyd Quartet (saxophone), Jason Moran (piano), Reuben Rogers (bass), Eric Harland (drums)
CATALOGUE NO: 175 4811
For a while it seemed that the passion of Charles Lloyd’s work with Cannonball Adderley and his own ‘psychedelic’ quartet of the 1960s had been dissipated by years of retreat from public performance.
While his ‘poet-in-the-tower’ manner (Lloyd’s description) still appears (as on Canto and Lift Every Voice, his response to 9/11) the virtues of his early years, the hard-edged yet romantic tenor tone, the pearl-producing heart of grit, have predominated since 1994’s All My Relations.
This CD, released to mark Lloyd’s 70th birthday, matches any of these albums, and this edition of the quartet stands comparison with any of its predecessors, not least Jason Moran, despite following the likes of Jarrett, Mehldau and Geri Allen.
Lloyd’s compositional talents are well-displayed, too: ‘Georgia Bright’ from the Adderley days still sounds fresh, ‘Migration’ is an elegant expansion of ‘Lonesome Child’ (1966), the rest are gorgeous examples of his ‘late period’. Barry Witherden