Charles Lloyd

Charles Lloyd is a musician one could talk about for hours, because he has had a long career with all sorts of different forms and met numerous like-minded people along the way, he has produced countless records and experimented with many different genres. Simply mentioning his name is actually enough to immediately fill a huge space full with associations: born in 1938 in Memphis, played together with Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and Bobby Hutcherson, played in Gerald Wilson’s band and then with Chico Hamilton, founded a quartet with Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette which made him a kind of pop star. Lloyd was more drawn to the pressured intensity of rock than most jazz purists, but never betrayed avant-garde. Then a retreat gave him the space to further make his instruments—the saxophone and the flute—extensions of his own body. He once said, he wanted to get to where “tone becomes the distilled essence and exactly this quality of purity can be sensed.” Those who play with him are carried by this poetic power. In the last two decades he has had musicians like Billy Higgins, John Abercrombie, Jason Moran and Brad Mehldau at his side. 32-year-old pianist Gerald Clayton is a member of his latest quartet, who is said to have a great career ahead of him.