Charles Lloyd: Jazz Star’s Czech Republic Appearance

“The Russians will probably be a little shaken,” wrote The New York Times in 1967, when the young jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd and his group were the first Americans without government support went to the Iron Curtain. The Quartet, where the world -famous Keith Jarrett later played the piano, in the middle of the Cold War in addition to Leningrad, Moscow and Tallinn also performed in Prague’s Lucerna.

“I even remember it very well. It was explosive. You felt that people had been worried about you for a long time, that they had enough and that there was a change in the air,” Saxophonist and Flute Lloyd recalls the first breaks of the Prague Spring in an interview for the List. The American perceived him in a broader context of the local movement for civil rights and student storms 60. “We were terribly angry with the world of condition. And the feeling was generally shared wherever you arrived anywhere,” he recalls.

Today he regrets the state of the world again. “I am a dreamer. It is not in my power to do more than playing. But I have the impression that after our concerts people feel a little better, so maybe I can offer people partial relief in this respect,” Lloyd explains why he is going on tour at the 87 years. He will also return to the Czech Republic. As the main star of the Brno Jazzfest, he will play with the Quartet on November 10 in the Sono Center.

Charles Lloyd enjoys respect at the end of his life. Last year’s critics poll of Down Beat magazine was announced by the Artist of the Year, the saxophonist of the year, his recording won the Award for the Album of the Year, and also entered the Hall of Fame. The spiritual musician has a typically light but intense tone and phrasing evokes a human voice in places. He most often performs in Čapka and black glasses, with a scarf around his neck. It has modestly, patiently, with advancing years leaves more and more space to teammates, first -class instrumentalists.

Last year he graduated around fifty concerts. This summer he was collecting forces for others, describing in a video interview from his house in the mountains of Santa Barbara, California. For decades he has lived here in a modernist house designed by his wife Dorothy Darr and where they have a view of the sea. “It’s a paradise. Dorothy is inventing where we walk around the mountains or to the sea,” says the saxophonist.

Together they take care of the garden. “There’s a whole orchard, a lot of fruit trees. And because Dorothy used to be a junior Olympic champion in swimming, we have a swimming pool. She goes swimming daily, sometimes I join,” adds the musician, who is inspired by active lifestyle. “Sometimes I think of such scraps on the walk. When I get back, I sit down to the piano and try what I could do with them,” he says.

When he has enough ideas for a new album, he invites musicians home. “Dorothy cooks a great lunch and then we go to the local studio,” says Charles Lloyd, as a new double album called Figure in Blue was created. He will be released next Friday on the Blue Note Records brand. He filmed the album with pianist Jason Moran, who will also accompany him in Brno, and the Chicago guitarist coming from Blues Marvin Sewell. He played with Lloyd in Prague 2019 for a change.

Although the album culminates the Cover version of Somewhere from the musical West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein, otherwise it contains mostly new and older author compositions. With the exception of two taken from Duke Ellington, to whom the saxophonist also donated the title composition. “All my life I have been interested in music, I couldn’t work in the bank. But when I was a kid, Duke Elington told my mother that I should become a doctor or a lawyer, because the life of the musician is too difficult,” Lloyd returns to my childhood.

In his native Memphis, his mother accommodated jazz musicians who came to the city to play. The boy had a lot of formative experiences with giants like Elington or Count Basia.

But Charles Lloyd did not experience an ideal childhood. “My mom was not at home forever, she had a complicated marriage, and she always postponed me with my relatives. He was a cousin who was still living a lot, now he was 97 years old. In my childhood, Memphis discovered a lot of amazing music,” recalls Lloyd and names early patterns like pianist Phineas Newborn or Saxophonists of Lester Young or Charlie Parker. Another, namely singer Billie Holliday or last year to the late player on Table Zaki Hussain, devoted compositions on a new album. “Meeting such creative personalities will notify you for a lifetime,” he explains who is grateful to them.

He started at the age of 50. He played the first concerts for segregation. “The audience was separate. White on the ground floor, black on the balcony,” describes the saxophonist, who has Indian blood and darker skin color after his grandmother.

He first came to the forefront at the age of 60, when he found a way to transfer the influence of the rock bands The Beach Boys or The Grateful Dead. With the then, very freely playing quartet including pianist Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee double bassist and drummer Jack Dejohnett sold over a million moldings of Forest Flower and first jazzmen penetrated the SanFrancis Hall of Fillmore West, where rockers including guitar Jimi Hendrix.

But until Jazzrock, Lloyd didn’t come. Surprisingly, he retreated at the peak of fame, where he quietly got rid of drug addiction. He moved away from the music industry and began to live simply, in the connection with nature in the California region of the Big Sur. For most of the 70s he practically did not perform and filmed only sporadically, including with The Beach Boys.

He went on tour with the talented French pianist Michel Petrucciani, who measured only 90 centimeters due to a rare bone failure and suffered serious health problems. Even the rest of the 80s.

In the following quarter of a century, he performed and filmed with various sets, including the Trio Sangam, a Quartet with the Greek singer Marie Farantouri, a series of recordings with variable line -ups Trio of Trios or The Marvels including guitarist Bill Frisell. On the album I Long To See You from 2016, as guests sang country star Willie Nelson and Norah Jones, Vanished Gardens two years later accompanied Lucinda Williams.

But Lloyd has already released these projects at the competing company Blue Note Records, whose president and recognized producer Don Was admires him since childhood. “For three years he has sought to switch to them,” Lloyd explains. He has been friends until now, he has recently visited him. “I played him with new songs that I have elaborated. He said he liked it so much and that I could give what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted,” illustrates the saxophonist his exceptional position with the publisher.

He is looking for a whole life, where to go. He does not want to repeat himself and needs to be surrounded by musicians willing to experiment. “One of the reasons I play is certainly the desire to elevate listeners,” he mentions. The word has spiritual connotations for him. Lloyd studied Buddhism, Islam and Vedant, a Hindu doctrine. He also cited at the former Prague concerts from the sacred Hindu book of Bhagavadgites.

“I would like to contribute to make the world better. You can dream of it in music and then share the deep inner experience with others,” explains the man who has a Vedian temple near home. “It is so close that we will walk from home on foot. Sometimes Svámíová arrives from India,” mentions spiritual teachers equipped with the title of learned bráhmanů.

There was a time when Lloyd cared about material things and money. “I liked racing cars. We loved Ferrari with my friend Gábor Szabó,” mentions the Hungarian guitarist, who lived in the US since the Soviets of the suppressed uprising of 1956. He and Lloyd played in the chamber quartet of the drummer Chica Hamilton. “At one point, we both unknowingly bought the same car, only everyone in a different color,” he jokes and recalls how they met celebrities as actor Steve McQueen or trumpeter Miles Davis at the races.

At that time, the saxophonist found satisfaction in a quick ride on the edge of possibilities. Today it is richly filled with playing. “I still have a car that can drive quickly, but I almost don’t drive. I am more interested in growing fruits and vegetables,” concludes Charles Lloyd.