Jamming with a pre-fame Ornette Coleman in 1950s Los Angeles. Playing in and composing for drummer Chico Hamilton’s exploratory early 1960s quintet. From 1966, leading his celebrated ‘classic quartet’, with drummer Jack DeJohnette, pianist Keith Jarrett and bassists Cecil McBee and Ron McClure – a group that was a huge crossover hit with the hippie generation and inspired Miles Davis to start playing in rock venues. Pioneering the incorporation of non-Western instruments and philosophies in jazz. Touring with pianist Michel Petrucciani in the 1980s. A long and fruitful relationship with the ECM label with over a dozen albums released between 1989 and 2013.

Saxophonist/flautist Charles Lloyd has been through many different artistic chapters during his long life in jazz. Even a quick summary of major milestones reveals a musical journey stunning in its diversity and depth. And then, in his late 70s, he found a lasting home at Blue Note, with the release of the live album “Wild Man Dance” in 2015. Since then, Lloyd has been enjoying a blinding flash of creativity. At an age when many other musicians are beginning to wind down their activities, Lloyd has released a string of acclaimed and powerful albums that reveal an elder statesman with powers undiminished, and an all-encompassing vision born of the wisdom of experience.

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels + Lucinda Williams – Vanished Gardens (2018)

In 2016, Lloyd unveiled his new group, The Marvels, with the album “I Long To See You”, featuring the crack rhythm section of bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland, plus a twang of Americana provided by guitarist Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz playing pedal steel guitar. In 2018, The Marvels returned with “Vanished Gardens” and the addition of Lucinda Williams, a multi-faceted singer-songwriter with roots in blues, country and rock. It sounds like nothing less than a love letter to America, with originals by both Lloyd and Williams as well as heartfelt versions of Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Mood” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Angel.”

Charles Lloyd & The Marvel – Tone Poem (2021)

The Marvels’ third outing, “Tone Poem”, found the country-inflected group without a vocalist but still devoted to exploring an alternative American songbook of tunes from a diverse range of genres, interpreted as imaginative instrumentals. Two tunes by Ornette Coleman – “Peace” and “Ramblin’” – are transformed from free jazz into something more rootsy and raw, with the latter riding a blues-rock groove. Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” appears as a languidly down-home hymn. And Lloyd pays tribute to his old band mate from the Chico Hamilton Quintet, guitarist Gabor Szabo, with a pristine version of his throbbing “Lady Gabor.” Lloyd’s originals also dig deep into styles from bygone days, with “Dismal Swamp” conjuring an infectious boogaloo.

Charles Lloyd – Trios: Chapel (2022)

In 2022, Lloyd announced one of his most ambitious projects to date. The Trio of Trios is a series of three albums – all released in 2022 – each featuring Lloyd playing in a different trio formation, with each evoking a distinct musical atmosphere. The inaugural instalment captures the very first meeting, in 2018, of The Chapel Trio – with Frisell on guitar and Thomas Morgan on bass– in the hushed environs of the Coates Chapel in San Antonio. Lloyd commented, “Our first performance has always had a magical place in my memory bank.” You can hear why. Playful and intimate, it captures three musicians enjoying an astonishing rapport across a smattering of Lloyd originals, Billy Strayhorn’s “Blood Count” and Cuban composer Vila Fernandez Ignacio Jacinto’s “Ay Amore.”

Charles Lloyd – Trios: Ocean (2022)

The second album in the Trios series documents another live show, by another percussion-free ensemble – with Anthony Wilson on guitar and Gerald Clayton on piano – this time recorded in the 150-year-old Lobero Theater in Lloyd’s hometown of Santa Barbara. There’s another personal connection for Lloyd too: Wilson is the son of trumpeter Gerald Wilson, in whose Big Band Lloyd played in his teens way back in the 1950s. Again, it’s a quietly intimate meeting of minds, that ranges over wide terrain, drawing on Lloyd’s deep love of the roots of jazz and his illustrious past experiences – from the Ornette-ish “Hagar and the Inuits” to the laid-back groove of “Jaramillo Blues.”

Charles Lloyd – Trios: Sacred Thread (2022)

The concluding chapter of the Trio of Trios was recorded in 2020 at the Paul Mahder Gallery in Healdsburg, California as a live-streamed concert during COVID lockdown, and features guitarist Julian Lage and one of Lloyd’s most important later collaborators, the late tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, with whom he first performed in 2001. At the heart of the album is Lloyd’s deep and abiding love and reverence for Indian music and the Vedanta spiritual philosophy that has been a cherished facet of his life for decades. “It’s ineffable, this music and what it does,” he told Don Was, “It heals hearts.”

Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (2024)

In Spring 2023, around his 85th birthday, the ever-questing Lloyd recorded an expansive double studio album by a brand-new band featuring some of the most in-demand instrumentalists in contemporary jazz – pianist Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Brian Blade. Released in 2024, “The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow” is a stunning collection of originals both new and old, with many favourites transformed into surprising new shapes. It’s conclusive proof that, in his ninth decade, Lloyd’s flame burns as brightly as ever, illuminating an astonishing body of work that ranks among the most vital in jazz history.

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Daniel Spicer is a Brighton-based writer, broadcaster and poet with bylines in The Wire, Jazzwise, Songlines and The Quietus. He’s the author of books on German free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann and Turkish psychedelic music.

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_{Header image: Charles Lloyd. Photo: D.Darr.}