01. Pretty Girl 4:48
02. Mood Indigo 5:13
03. Bess, You Is My Woman Now 3:36
04. All About Ronnie 4:17
05. Pictogram 3:56
06. You’ve Changed 4:47
07. Hagar Suite I. Journey Up River 6:20
08. Hagar Suite II. Dreams Of White Bluff 9:45
09. Hagar Suite III. Alone 2:30
10. Hagar Suite IV. Bolivar Blues 4:16
11. Hagar Suite V. Hagar’s Lullaby 5:41
12. Rosetta 4:38
13. I Shall Be Released 5:07
14. God Only Knows 3:31

Charles Lloyd - alto and tenor saxophones, alto and bass flutes
Jason Moran - piano, tambourine

Hagar's Song is a deeply intimate, intuitive offering from saxophonist Charles Lloyd and pianist Jason Moran, who has been a key part of Lloyd's quartet since 2008. The program is a collection of standards and originals, as well as one thorny, angular free improvisation ("Pictogram"). The title piece is a five-part suite dedicated to the memory of Lloyd's great-great grandmother, who spent most of her life as a slave. Its various sections reflect the harshness of that life, as well as moments of hope and determination. This work is not always "comfortable" to listen to, and it's not meant to be, but it is musically rich and emotionally taut. Lloyd has always celebrated his deep love of jazz and pop traditions, and those are in abundance here. The near-symbiotic dialogue the pair share on Billy Strayhorn's "Pretty Girl" and George Gershwin's "Bess You Is My Woman Now" offers both dialogic imagination as well as deep listening. (On the latter, Lloyd reveals how supple his tonal reach remains on the tenor as he nears 75; he sweeps from its middle register to something closer to the alto's.) The swinging read of "Mood Indigo" commences conventionally, but Moran's deft, blues-drenched, physical stride lends an urgency to the conversation. Likewise his punchy approach on Earl Hines' "Rosetta," where Lloyd takes the melody and opens up its joy vein, while Moran pumps it with rhythmic and lyric invention courtesy of his amazing left hand. Lloyd's love of rock and pop has its place here, too. On Bob Dylan's ballad "I Shall Be Released," Moran begins with a single repeating note, then a lone chord, as Lloyd tentatively states the melody. But by the second verse, he's quoting from Leon Russell's "A Song for You," as Moran moves its harmonic base to the modal. Lloyd brings it back via an emotional blues, but his tenor moves through its registers picking bits and pieces of the lyric line to meditate upon and explore with Moran. The closer, a reading of Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" is just gorgeous. Moran's elaboration on the harmony in the intro sets it up outside its known parameters. Lloyd quotes the refrain and then takes the lyric line, exploring time and memory -- Lloyd ran around with the Beach Boys in Southern California in the late '60s. Satisfied, he turns it over to Moran to finish with a close, tender harmonic statement that whispers to a finish. Hagar's Song finds Lloyd and Moran at their most naturally curious and deeply attentive best, offering a conversation so intimate the listener may occasionally feel she is eavesdropping. ---Thom Jurek, Rovi

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01. Masters of War (8:05)
02. Of Course, Of Course (6:04)
03. La Llorona (6:02)
04. Shenandoah (6:23)
05. Sombrero Sam (7:31)
06. All My Trials (5:02)
07. Last Night, I Had the Strangest Dream (4:49)
08. Abide with Me (1:22)
09. You Are So Beautiful (6:05)
10. Barche Lamsel (16:26)

Bill Frisell - Guitar
Eric Harland - Drums
Norah Jones - Vocals
Greg Leisz - Guitar (Steel)
Charles Lloyd - Arranger, Flute (Alto), Sax (Tenor)
Willie Nelson - Guitar, Vocals
Reuben Rogers – Bass

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd has been working with guitarists periodically since the 1950s: Calvin Newborn, Gabor Szabo, John Abercrombie, and others have played in his bands. On I Long to See You, he (with his stellar rhythm section -- bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland) renews that relationship with two gifted players: Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz (the latter on lap and pedal steel). This program yields folk and spiritual songs, re-recordings of Lloyd's own tunes, a pop nugget, and a new original. In what feels like the input from the label, there are two guest vocal appearances to boot: Willie Nelson beautifully delivers Ed McCurdy's antiwar classic "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream," and Norah Jones offers a slow, dreamy reading of "You Are So Beautiful."

I Long to See You feels more like a collaboration between Lloyd and Frisell than a leader date, which is sometimes problematic: these men can be overly deferential to one another. The album starts promisingly with a brooding read of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" that threatens to explode at any moment. Frisell and Leisz (who have worked together a lot) take it through deep winding blues, building tension before Lloyd enters and carries it toward the outside before returning to blues, while Harland's circular drumming becomes somberly hypnotic. Lloyd plays flute on "Of Course, of Course" (originally recorded for an album of the same name for Columbia in 1964). Like its predecessor, it's tough, swinging post-bop with colorful slide guitar work and rim-shot syncopations. "La Llorona," from Lloyd's ECM years, is a standout: it captures his open, mournful, Spanish-tinged wail, fleshed out by elegant, timbral guitars, a sad bassline, and Harland's magical timekeeping. "Shenandoah" (which Frisell has recorded before), "All My Trials," and "Abide with Me" are all melodically attractive, but they lack the undercurrent of passion Lloyd has imbued traditional material with in the past. He and Frisell appear so seduced by their melodies, they treat them as fragile objects, not songs whose meanings need to be further explored.

Frisell's speculative solo intro on "Sombrero Sam" is overly long; Lloyd's rhythmic sweeping flute doesn't enter until five minutes in, and slips out too quickly. The lone new tune, "Barche Lamsel," more than compensates. Over 16 minutes in length, it's easily the most exploratory thing here. It commences slowly but starts cooking five minutes in. Lloyd and the rhythm section are at their modal improvisational best, moving through folk, funk, blues, Eastern modes, and post-bop. Frisell and Leisz lend fine solos as well as layered textural and atmospheric support. The tune is a journey that ends in a question mark. I Long to See You is well worth investigating even if, at times, it is overly tentative. --- Thom Jurek, Rovi

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 01 - I Fall in Love Too Easily (Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne) 5:00
 02 - Go Down Moses (Traditional) 5:59
 03 - Desolation Sound (Charles Lloyd) 7:03
 04 - La Llorona (Traditional) 5:35
 05 - Caroline, No (Brian Wilson, Tony Asher) 4:02								play
 06 - Monk's Mood (Thelonious Monk) 5:01
 07 - Mirror (Charles Lloyd) 6:42
 08 - Ruby, My Dear (Thelonious Monk) 5:25
 09 - The Water Is Wide (Traditional) 7:19
 10 - Lift Every Voice and Sing (James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson) 4:29	play
 11 - Being and Becoming (Charles Lloyd) 7:02
 12 - Tagi (Charles Lloyd) 9:17

Personel:
 Charles Lloyd: tenor and alto saxophones, voice;
 Jason Moran: piano;
 Reuben Rogers: bass;
 Eric Harland: drums.

Restraint can be more powerful than flexed muscles. This has long been the credo of saxophonist Charles Lloyd. At 72, he’s mellower than ever, yet his music manages to reach deeper. His jazz is meditative, spiritual, and in his new quartet he has found a group of like-minded individuals — pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers, and drummer Eric Harland. “Mirror’’ is this group’s second album but its first studio effort. For the session, Lloyd gathered a diverse group of tunes — standards, hymns, originals, and even a pop song — and made them cohere. Sometimes, as with “I Fall in Love Too Easily,’’ Lloyd feels no obligation to state the melody overtly. But sometimes, as with the Thelonious Monk ballads “Monk’s Mood’’ and “Ruby, My Dear,’’ the melody is crucial to the performance. Even when the group gets slightly funky, during “The Water Is Wide,’’ Lloyd’s tone remains soft and rounded; Moran, however, lets loose with a seriously bluesy solo. The set’s most surprising number is a cover of the Beach Boys hit “Caroline, No.’’ Lloyd and Moran alternately carry the melody, and then improvise way off it, while Harland plays skittering polyrhythms and Rogers keeps it all anchored. What’s not surprising is that a Lloyd-led group can make the song sound like a jazz standard. ---Steve Greenlee, The Boston Globe

The American saxophonist Charles Lloyd was once treated as an early-fusion lightweight by aficionados, but not any more. Lloyd came under ECM's wing in the 1990s, and is now known as a moving ballad player with a uniquely gauzy and vulnerable sound, but with rougher free-jazz diversions, as an open-handed bandleader (currently with his strongest quartet, including pianist Jason Moran) and a fine composer. On a beautiful account of I Fall in Love Too Easily, Lloyd's solo glows with hollow-toned, scurrying phrasing against Reuben Rogers's supportive bass. The gospel classics Go Down Moses and The Water Is Wide pulsate with absorbing detail, from Moran's ringing treble figures and drummer Eric Harland's rimshots to Lloyd's spiralling runs out of the tenor's bottom register. The leader's original Desolation Sound is a slow-swinging tenor ballad, hinting at the Coltrane of All Blues, and the band's majestic account of the traditional La Llorona seems to be awaiting a Godfather-like epic movie. There are two Monk tunes, with Ruby My Dear teasingly drifting between Latin grooves and swing in the hands of the gifted Harland. This album looks like one of 2010's major contenders. ---John Fordham, guardian.co.uk

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A1 Days And Nights Waiting 6:55
A2 Sweet Georgia Bright 18:05
B1 Love Song To A Baby 12:22
B2 Tribal Dance 10:05

Bass – Ron McClure
Drums – Jack DeJohnette
Flute – Charles Lloyd
Piano – Keith Jarrett
Tenor Saxophone – Charles Lloyd

The Charles Lloyd Quartet was (along with Cannonball Adderley's band) the most popular group in jazz during the latter half of the 1960s. Lloyd somehow managed this feat without watering down his music or adopting a pop repertoire. A measure of the band's popularity is that Lloyd and his sidemen (pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Ron McClure and drummer Jack DeJohnette) were able to have a very successful tour of the Soviet Union during a period when jazz was still being discouraged by the communists. This well-received festival appearance has four lengthy performances including an 18-minute version of "Sweet Georgia Bright" and Lloyd (who has always had a soft-toned Coltrane influenced tenor style and a more distinctive voice on flute) is in top form. ---Scott Yanow, AllMusic Review

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1 Newport 1
2 Newport 2
3 Newport 3
4 Newport 4

Charles Lloyd - sax, flute, piano
Eric Harland - drums
Zakir Hussain - tablas, vocals

For his uncompromising and serious music, the 2011 Newport Jazz Festival was eager to present Charles Lloyd. He could bring any group he wanted, they told him. Lloyd said yes, and that he would bring Sangam, an East-West trio with one CD and few performances on the schedule. It was a coup!

As Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times, "Sangam, the trio of the saxophonist Charles Lloyd, the percussionist Zakir Hussain and the drummer Eric Harland, played and sang — for Mr. Hussain, there's sometimes no difference — through a meditative set of Indian music and free improvisation ... [It] was one of the best stretches of the day." Ratliff concluded that the trio's performance created "a sense that this moment might be bigger than music."

Sangam means confluence in Sanskrit. The group came together in 2006 to honor drummer Billy Higgins (1936-2001), a dear friend of Lloyd and great influence on Lloyd's music. Tabla drummer Hussain sits cross-legged on a beautiful carpet opposite Harland, who moves between drums and piano. In the center, Lloyd plays saxophone, Hungarian tarogato, flute, maracas and piano. Their fluid, meditative music moves through moods and textures with a controlled intensity.

Lloyd was born and raised in Memphis. Host Dee Dee Bridgewater's father, Matthew Garrett, was Lloyd's music teacher at Manassas High School. Charles Lloyd moved to Los Angeles, earned his Master's Degree at USC, and worked consistently in the 1960s with drummer Chico Hamilton and the Cannonball Adderley band. The high point came with Lloyd's quartet appearing at San Francisco's great rock venue, The Fillmore, and the recording Forest Flower, Live at Monterey.

Forest Flower sold over a million copies, but it ended an era for Lloyd. He withdrew to Big Sur to find solitude and a new way of living, and did not return to performing for more than a decade.

Hussain was born in Mumbai and made his first trip to the U.S. in 1970, before turning 20. Over the decades, Hussain has worked with George Harrison, Shakti with John McLaughlin, and these days with banjoist Bela Fleck. Harland, from Houston, is a generation younger than Hussain, but is already a longtime member of Lloyd's quartet and the SF Jazz Collective. At Newport, Harland played with three groups: Sangam, James Farm and the Avishai Cohen Trio. ---Becca Pulliam, northcountrypublicradio.org

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