Charles
Lloyd Quartet
Aladdin
Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 233-1994
8 pm Wednesday, Oct. 11
$22.50
Charles Lloyd
Quartet: Lloyd, saxophone; John Abercrombie, guitar; Jeffrey
Littleton, bass; Billy Hart, drums.
"Few will hear the secrets hidden within the notes," wrote
Persian mystical poet Jelaluddin Rumi. After clamoring to
the largest popular audience of any jazz artist of the '60s,
cloistering himself in a near-monastic semi-retirement in
the '70s, forging one of the brightest "comebacks" of the
'80s and achieving elder jazz-sage status in the '90s, saxophonist
Charles Lloyd has become one of the chosen few to discover
that secret.
Cue up "Tales of Rumi," the opening track on his elegiac
1997 ECM disc Canto. Opening with the spacious pattering
of Anders Jormin's bass, Bobo Stenson steps in quietly,
playing the inside of his piano like a harmonium while drummer
Billy Hart gently taps his ride cymbal. It isn't until six
and a half minutes into the homage that the leader enters,
and even then one has to strain to hear his whispered phrases.
Of course, the tight, reedy tone and telltale warble that
announce the Middle Eastern theme soon gives him away.
In "Tales of Rumi" and the rest of Lloyd's '90s recordings,
the saxophonist and composer has created a unique synthesis
of freedom-loving, sheets-of-sound Coltrane exhortation
and an adherence to a Zen-like silence. The resulting body
of work has the brittle, diamond-chiseled clarity of a meditative
jazz haiku.
Since Charles Lloyd's first quartet was the jazz pride
of 1967's Summer of Love, there's a certain symmetry to
this Buddhist end-around. At 27, fresh from apprenticeships
with Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley, the young Bay
Area saxophonist put together a quartet of talented young
things in drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Cecil McBee and
21-year-old piano wunderkind Keith Jarrett. Despite a certain
sense of finding-their-way musical immaturity and a dilution
of the free jazz of Coltrane, Ayler and Taylor, the group's
message tapped a popular vein. While Miles Davis ascended
to his Black Prince throne among the counterculture kids,
Lloyd--with hits like "Sweet Georgia Bright," "Island Blues"
and "Forest Flower"--offered the good vibe, love-in side
of jazz to stoned, appreciative hippies.
Of course, they may have missed a bit of the message. Lloyd's
music was never intended as a barbaric yawp, but rather
as a gentle rejoinder. Whereas Coltrane muscularly honed
his exhaustive modality to fire an angry cry of the times,
Lloyd took Trane's tools--and especially his meditative
bent--to shine a mirror on the quiet side.
Now, 30-plus years on, Lloyd's compositions have become
soulful prayers. He's also finally found musicians who handle
such musical austerity not with kid gloves but with sage
wisdom: drummer Billy Hart allows the music to float like
ether while avoiding stasis with a swing as natural as breathing,
and John Abercrombie's guitar can be a piano, B3 and pipe
organ all in one.
Listening to the recasting of the classic "Forest Flower"
on last year's Voice in the Night, one hears Lloyd
revisiting his youth with the gracious understanding of
a grandfather explaining how it's done to an adoring grandson.
What was formerly a brash young man's attempt at slowing
down to the subtleties of samba now sounds like an age-old
guru looking out at the sea while the music courses through
his veins.
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