Record Club 2

The Records: Charles Lloyd Quartet, Forest Flower and The Flowering
Acquired: I found both records at Jackpot Records during my visit to Portland last month. Jackpot Records is a brilliant name for a record store, by the way. Total cost: $8.
Thoughts on the records: I've liked Charles Lloyd's late-sixties quartet with Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Cecil McBee for awhile, but their work has long been a hole in my own library. So I jumped at the chance to get two records recorded during the quartet's artistic and popular peak. Both are live recordings (Forest Flower was recorded at the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival, The Flowering at Aulaen Hall in Oslo also in 1966)

I started with The Flowering, since it had the better-looking cover (though unfortunately the "DJ Copy" sticker would probably ruin the cover should I try to remove it). Lloyd gets overpowered by the rhythm section at times on the first track due to shoddy amplification, but his unmistakable tone still sounds refreshing. Keith Jarrett tears up the first tune, Kurt Weill's Speak Low. The second tune, Love-In/Island Blues, sounds a bit stale to me today, but Jarrett's solos (and his interplay with DeJohnette) save the tune for me. The record as a whole strikes a fine balance. The quartet gets room to stretch in a live setting, but they don't get so abstract as to lose the listener. When you're trying to reach frequently-stoned college kids during the late sixties, it is a good idea not to stray too far from the listener's comfort zone.

Forest Flower was a bit of a downer, mostly because the first side (containing Lloyd's Forest Flower suite) had so many pops and hisses that I couldn't stand to listen to the entire thing. Such is the risk when buying used vinyl: upon further inspection, I noticed a long, light scratch along the radius of the entire side. I'd be more upset about it if I paid more than $5 for the record. Luckily Side 2 has a nice version of Jarrett's Sorcery with Lloyd on flute. All in all, not a bad transaction.

Some Good Albums From 2008

Since I am not a professional reviewer, and since I have not listened to nearly as much new music as I would have liked to, I will not be making a year-end "Best Of" list. Instead, here are a few recordings from 2008 that I liked. The list may not be exhaustive, but there are plenty of places for those kinds of lists on the internet. If you're looking for a year-end list with more depth, go here, here, here, or here. In the meantime, my three favorites of 2008, in no particular order...

1. Charles Lloyd, Rabo de Nube
2. Medeski Martin & Wood, Radiolarians 1
3. Pat Metheny, Tokyo Day Trip

Also, here are five albums I missed in 2008 (because I am a busy man), but still want to check out:

1. Kenny Garrett, Sketches of MD: Live at The Iridium
   
2. Brad Meldau, Brad Mehldau Trio: Live
3. Eric Dolphy, At The Five Spot, Vol. 1 (Re-release)
4. Dave Holland Sextet, Pass It On
5. James Carter, Present Tense

And a fond farewell to Johnny Griffin, Arthur C. Clarke, Bo Diddley, Albert Hofmann, Paul Newman, Studs Terkel, Mitch Mitchell, and anyone else I may have forgotten...

Happy New Year.

Review

Charles Lloyd Quartet
Rabo de Nube

With so many past masters of jazz passing away these days, I pay attention when an old lion releases a new recording - indeed, morbid as the thought may be, we have no way of knowing if each recording will be that particular musicians' final album. So you can understand why my interest was piqued when I heard that Charles Lloyd had released a live album recorded last year in Europe. Rabo de Nube, his latest offering, serves as a fond look back for Lloyd, in which he and his band run through a series of tunes from various stages of his vast career. Showing the introspective maturity one would expect of a lion in winter, Lloyd constantly pulls moments of surprise and beauty out of some familiar tunes, including "Sweet Georgia Bright," first heard on the 1964 Cannonball Adderley album Fiddler on The Roof. He and his band put into practice Ralph Ellison's dictum that jazz can put people directly in the present moment, where they can reflect on the past while also looking forward.

And what a band it is, with piano wunderkind Jason Moran injecting much energy into Lloyd's frequent sidemen Ruben Rogers and Eric Harland. This quartet lives up to the standard set by Lloyd's past ensembles with Keith Jarrett, Billy Hart, and others, and pushes Lloyd into heady territory. Jason Moran may be the best young pianist in jazz, who already has an impressive discography to his own credit. His uses of complex rhythmic and harmonic devices, combined with his percussive style and historically-minded approach to piano, make this album more than just a blowing session. He and his former schoolmate, Harland, drive Lloyd during his solos. Combined with Lloyd's characteristic warm tone, Harland and Moran balance out the ensemble, giving pulse and drive to Lloyd's Coltrane-inspired melodicism. Rogers, a newcomer to Lloyd's quartet as well, more than holds his own, letting Moran and Harland lead the comping during Lloyd's solos without disappearing behind them. His soloing is also impressive and melodically fresh.

Highlights on this disc include the opening track, "Prometheus," as well as the aforementioned "Sweet Georgia Bright," in which Lloyd and his band let loose. Also of note is "La Colline de Monk," the lead-in to "Sweet Georgia Bright," in which Moran channels Thelonious Monk in new and surprising ways (no small feat), filtering stride foundations and Monkish harmonies through his own inventive rhythms. Moran's monologue on "La Colline de Monk" is emblematic of the album, reworking familiar material with a new approach which challenges the listener and personifies the Ellisonian stance of looking forward while also looking back. Released a few days shy of his seventieth birthday, Charles Lloyd has shown with Rabo de Nube that he is still Charles Lloyd, and his listeners are all the better for it.

Track Listing: Prometheus; Migration of Spirit; Booker's Garden; Ramanujan; La Colline de Monk; Sweet Georgia Bright; Rabo de Nube
Personnel: Lloyd, saxophone, flute; Jason Moran, piano; Ruben Rogers, bass; Eric Harland, drums