Charles Lloyd is the last man standing of an inspired 1950s American saxophone generation, which included his late friends and contemporaries John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, and the now-retired Sonny Rollins. He once recalled to the Guardian that the free-jazz visionary Coleman had told him in 1956: “Man, you sure can play the saxophone, but that don’t have a lot to do with music.” Lloyd has been searching the world’s songs for the heartfelt secrets beyond technique ever since, and his voice-like sound and intuitive ensemble communion seems to convey more with less with each exquisite new album. 

The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow – new and old material played by an all-star lineup – is released on Lloyd’s 86th birthday, 15 March. Backed by pianist/composer Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Brian Blade, this set’s beautiful opener Defiant, Tender Warrior builds a bewitching trance from soft piano wavelets, growling bass accents and snare-pattern whispers before Lloyd’s breathy tenor long-tones and enraptured top-end warbles even begin. Monk’s Dance, a tribute to the pianist and composer whom Lloyd calls “the high priest”, opens on Moran’s free-to-stride piano whirlpools, setups for Lloyd’s whimsical lateral-bop sax solo.

There are lovely flute interludes – the quiveringly harmonized Late Bloom – and sublime sax tone-poems: The Lonely One; the impressionistic and then impassioned Billie Holiday tribute The Ghost of Lady Day; and Lloyd’s account of the African American spiritual There is a Balm in Gilead, previously explored by him and the late drums legend Billy Higgins on 2000’s The Water Is Wide. Lloyd well knows he’s in the twilight of a great career – he recently remarked to Jazzwise that he’s “in the last stages of the journey now”. But you’d never know it from the light and joy glowing through this music.

from www.theguardian.com