Influenced by contemporary hard-bop and soul-jazz, but already sensitive to the appeal of Miles Davis' sound, the quartet formed by tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd (1938) with pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jack DeJohnette
penned Dream Weaver (march 1966), that contained the suites Autumn Sequence and Dream Weaver, and Forest Flower (september 1966), that contained the suite Forest Flower, two albums that achieved crossover success, a premonition of the jazz-rock era.
The live double-disc
Manhattan Stories (september 1965) documents
Charles Lloyd's short-lived
quartet, consisting of guitarist Gabor
Szabo, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Pete La Roca.
It contains Lloyd's
Sweet Georgia Bright and Dream Weaver as well as Szabo's Lady Gabor, originally recorded by the Chico Hamilton Quintet.
Lloyd had already experimented with a quartet format on
Discovery (may 1964), arguably containing his best performances,
notably an early version of Forest Flower.
Love-In (january 1967) documents a concert by the Charles Lloyd Quartet:
Jack De Johnette (drums), Keith Jarrett (piano) and Ron McClure (bass).
The five-disc box-set Quartets (ECM, 2013) contains:
Fish Out Of Water (july 1989)
with Bobo Stenson on piano, Palle Danielsson on bass and Jon
Christensen on drums; Notes From Big Sur
(november 1991) with Stenson and a different rhythm
section; The Call
(july 1993) with Stenson, bassist Jormin
and drummer Billy Hart; All My Relations
(july 1994),
including the 15-minute Cape To Cairo Suite, with Stenson, Jormin and Hart;
and Canto (december 1996),
including the 17-minute Tales Of Rumi), again
still with the same partners but with Lloyd playing Tibetan oboe.
Rabo de Nube (ECM, 2008) is a live album.
The live Wild Man Dance (november 2013) documents an ensemble with pianist Gerald Clayton, lyre player Sokratis Sinopoulos, drummer Gerald Cleaver, cimbalom player Miklos Lucaks and bassist Joe Sanders.
The Marvels consisted of Bill Frisell (guitar), Greg Leisz (pedal steel guitar), Reuben Rogers (bass) and Eric Harland (drums). They debuted with I Long To See You (april 2015), including the 16-minute Barche Lamsel, followed by the live Masters Of War (november 2016), that features country vocalist Lucinda Williams and is a tribute to Bob Dylan's eponymous song.
The Marvels' third album
Vanished Gardens (september 2017) featured vocalist Lucinda Williams in five of its ten pieces.
The same sessions (without the singer) yielded their fourth album Tone Poem (september 2017).
The quartet of Love-In also performs on the live double-disc Montreux Jazz Festival (june 1967), including a 27-minute version of Forest Flower.
Trios - Chapel (december 2018) was the first album of a "Trio of Trios" serie by Charles Lloyd who gathered Bill Frisell (guitar) and Thomas Morgan (bass) to perform five "drum-less" compositions.
Ocean (september 2020), second part of the "trios trilogy", features
Gerald Clayton on piano and Anthony Wilson on guitar.
Lloyd played alto and tenor saxes and flute on
Sacred Thread (september 2020), the third and final installment in his "Trio of Trios" series featuring guitarist Julian Lage and percussionist Zakir Hussain (who also composed three of the pieces).
A quartet with Jason Moran (piano), Larry Grenadier (bass) and Brian Blade (drums) recorded one of his best,
the double-disc The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
(spring 2023).
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