In time for the great saxophonist’s 70th birthday on March 15, a rousing set from a revamped Lloyd Quartet, recorded live in Basel in 2007. New to the party, and in an ECM debut, is pianist Jason Moran, whose percussive attack, with its echoes of Monk and Bud Powell, lights fires. Moran already has a history with drummer Eric Harland, intensifying the rhythmic interaction that lifts Lloyd skyward on uptempo workouts including a blistering account of old favourite “Sweet Georgia Bright”. There are also tender ballads, including the title track, Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez’s “Rabo de Nube” (“tail of a cloud”), a mountaintop meditation with the tarogato (“Ramanujan”), a tribute to Booker Little, and more. CD booklet includes concert photography as well as verse by prizewinning poet Charles Simic which nicely characterizes both the “rural” and “city” aspects of Charles’s sound.
Rabo de Nube
Charles Lloyd
- 1Prometheus
14:43 - 2Migration of Spirit
10:15 - 3Booker's Garden
14:33 - 4Ramanujan
11:38 - 5La Colline de Monk
04:01 - 6Sweet Georgia Bright
12:17 - 7Rabo de Nube
07:36
Die vier Musiker erhalten viel Raum zum Improvisieren. Einmal mehr hat Lloyd, bei dem schon Keith Jarrett, Michel Petrucciani, Brad Mehldau und Geri Allen ihre Sporen abverdient haben, eine glückliche Hand bei der Auswahl des Pianisten bewiesen: Lloyds eigener weicher Ton, seine Girlanden und Arabesken kontrastieren aufs Interessanteste mit dem perkussiven Spiel Jason Morans. … Was lebendiger, pulsierender, aus dem Moment erschaffener Jazz ist, kann man hier hautnah und intensiv erleben.
Manfred Papst, Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag
Angefeuert vom Schlagzeuger Eric Harland, dem Bassisten Reuben Rogers und Jason Moran am Piano – drei Musikern der mittleren Generation, die dem Altmeister mächtig Dampf unter den Ton geben -, zieht Lloyd seine Spuren. Ob er eine zarte, fast schon brüchig gespielte Solokadenz auf dem Tenorsaxofon in einen explosiven Einsatz der Band münden lässt oder in eleganten Kurven durch das Dickicht einer Ballade schlendert, ob er mit Nachdruck und sattem Ton die Dynamik noch einmal ausreizt oder zu den karibisch hüpfenden Rhythmen seiner Band die Altflöte singen lässt: Sein Spiel weist immer in zwei Richtungen – in die Vergangenheit, die auch seine eigene ist, und in die Freiheit, ein Reich, in dem die harmonischen Beziehungsverhältnisse flexibel, die Rhythmen elastisch und die Melodien majestätisch sind.
Stefan Hentz, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Rabo de Nube reiht sich ein in eine Reihe exzellenter Veröffentlichungen, bietet aber eben nicht einfach nur mehr vom schon Bekannten, sondern immer wieder etwas Neues. So werden die indischen Anklänge in „Ramamujan“ von einem Tasten donnernden Jason Moran aus den Wolken geholt, und Lloyd ist vor allem auf dem Tenorsaxofon ein nahezu unerreichter Melodienschöpfer. … Und wieder mal scheint sich eine neue Band für den unlängst siebzig gewordenen Charles Lloyd als Jungbrunnen zu erweisen.
Rolf Thomas, Jazzthetik
Gern sucht Lloyd die Herausforderung großer Pianisten. Moran, der zu Recht hoch gehandelte Newcomer der letzten Jahre, ist genau der Richtige. Blues, Rag, Monk und Bop, die Traditionen schwarzer Musik, zappt er kantig, harsch und quirlig zu etwas Neuem zusammen. Wie sich Charles Lloyd wach, reaktionsschnell und ausgeruht weise davon fordern und inspirieren lässt, ist das Sensationelle dieser CD. Ein wundervolles neues Kapitel in der an Ankünften und Aufbrüchen reichen Lebensgeschichte einer der Ikonen des aktuellen Jazz.
Ulrich Steinmetzger, Leipziger Volkszeitung
Charles Lloyd was one of the first jazz musicians to cross over to rock audiences in the 60s, and the charismatic tenor saxophonist has continued to attract youthful listeners with his profoundly deep sound and passionate intensity along with mystical forays into transcendent world music. On Rabo De Nube the shamanistic elder statesman is surrounded by a formidable lineup of gifted youngbloods… Together, they stretch out before a wildly appreciative audience at Theater Basel in Switzerland. The results are scintillating.
Bill Milkowski, The Absolute Sound
Un vrai régal! Quant à Charles Lloyd, par sa sonorité, ses inflexions, son phrasé mélodique, il déroule au ténor un chant majestueusement sombre et sobre, habité par une spiritualité quasi coltranienne, porté par une urgence sereinement lyrique qui va de la légèreté dansante à la mélancolie rêveuse. Pour preuve preuve, Rabo de Nube, un thème nostalgique du chanteur cubain Sylvio Rodriguez qui est en passe de devenir grâce à lui un nouveau standard.
La grande qualité de cet enregistrement tient également à son caractère live. Il rappellera les légendaires concerts publiés du fameux quartet de Lloyd en 1966-67 avec Jarrett, McBee ou McClure et DeJohnette. On l’avait aussi noté avec Michel Petrucciani. Comme si le saxophoniste communiquait une fièvre particulière à ses partenaires. En cela, depuis toujours, il s’avère un leader charismatique, obtenant de chacun – et ici encore – un engagement total. Il faut dire que pour l’équation feeling + générosité + réceptivité = profondeur, il donne l’exemple. Avec son élégance coutumière, faussement nonchalante, classieuse et dégingandée.
Pascal Anquetil, Jazzman
Though the album takes its name from a song by Cuban nueva cancion singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez, Rabo De Nube is mostly hard-swinging jazz, not atmospheric world music. It’s a diverse and hearty voyage, passing through cosmic grandeur, reverent homage, spiritual splendour, dance and romance, plus a witty pair of allusions to Thelonious Monk. … This is an inspiring album.
Paul de Barros, DownBeat
Veteran saxophonist Charles Lloyd still retains a whiff of his psychedelic-jazz past, but with an up-to-the-minute rhythm section prodding and goading, this recent live recording resonates with more contemporary concerns. Eric Harland and Reuben Rogers take no prisoners on drums and bass, whipping up rhythms and changing direction on the point of a pin, and pianist Jason Moran is just as interactive. Lloyd dovetails perfectly in a programme of Lloyd-penned world-jazz drones and furious swingers.
Mike Hobart, Financial Times
This live album with his quartet finds him in freewheeling form reinventing tunes from his past. His playing on sax and flute runs from delicate balladry to blues to fiery abstraction. Threatening to overshadow him though, is the hip young pianist Jason Moran. His rhythmic, percussive playing while rooted in jazz, calls on everything from classical music to hip-hop.
John Bungey, The Times
This is a powerful and varied set, with the post bop-into-abstraction of “Prometheus” moving smoothly into the near waltz of “Migration of Spirit” and stretching into the edgy “La colline de Monk”. Two numbers – “Sweet Georgia Bright” and tender “Rabo de Nube” – have featured on other Lloyd albums. Otherwise this is entirely new material, clearly shaped for the talents of his young players. Lloyd is magisterial whether on tenor on “Prometheus” or mysterious playing tarogato on “Ramanujan”. But it’s his tribute to Memphis childhood fried, trumpeter Booker Little – “Booker’s Garden” with some typical wayward flute – that steals the show.
Duncan Heining, Jazzwise
In verse written specially for this release, Charles Simic (currently Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress) pinpoints the poles of Charles Lloyd’s unique musical personality. On the one hand, the metropolitan jazzman, taking the music further, with the greatest respect for the tradition: “Late night talk / On a tenor / With the dead / And the shadows they cast.” On the other, the flute player of the forests and the mountain: “Voice of solitude. / Voice of insomnia. / Call of a night bird. / Continuous prayer.” Charles Lloyd represents both of these positions, and the ‘rural’ and the ‘city’ aspects of his music are again in evidence on “Rabo de Nube”.
This live album, recorded in Basel in 2007, is issued in time for Charles’s 70th birthday on March 15, 2008. The disc introduces the newest edition of the Lloyd Quartet, with Jason Moran on piano and Reuben Rogers on bass joining Charles and drummer Eric Harland (both Moran and Rogers making their ECM debuts here). The work doesn’t stop, even for birthday celebrations, and just as Lloyd has continued to refine his sound as a player so he continues to shape his group music, always encouraging the players – in this case musicians half his age – to find their own space inside it.
“Rabo de Nube” (Tail of a Cloud) is named for the tune by Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez which concludes the performance here, a beautiful ballad that has long been a favourite of Lloyd’s. It makes its second appearance in his ECM discography, having previously appeared on “Lift Every Voice”, recorded in 2002. All other tunes are Lloyd originals and include the vintage “Sweet Georgia Bright”, a piece that Charles first recorded in 1964, both with his own band and with Cannonball Adderley’s group, and which, with its driving momentum, has been a concert favourite ever since. The Basel concert opens with “Prometheus”, which seems to borrow some of “Georgia Bright”’s fire. “Migration of Spirit” is a big, radiant tenor meditation. “Booker’s Garden”, in memory of childhood friend Booker Little, is a cheery tribute with the alto flute. The tarogato comes to the fore in “Ramanujan”, a piece whose non-specific tribal pulses tap into a universal folk-dance that has belonged to the ambit of Lloyd’s music since at least the late 60s and “Journey Within.” Its open form encourages some swirling piano responses from Moran, who gets back to the roots on “La Colline de Monk”, which, in turn, leads to “Sweet Georgia”. In all, “Rabo de Nube”, the album, gives a good account of the scope of Charles Lloyd’s music today.
Related Recordings
You need to load content from reCAPTCHA to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More InformationYou need to load content from Turnstile to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More InformationYou are currently viewing a placeholder content from Facebook. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More InformationYou are currently viewing a placeholder content from Instagram. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More InformationYou are currently viewing a placeholder content from X. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information