via The Observer
Tenor sax titan Charles Lloyd continues to deliver marvels at 87. After 2024’s prize-winning The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow comes this double album honouring artists who captured his young heart in 1940s Memphis. The influence of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington is central, whether in cover versions or freshly written tributes. Most often heard as a quartet, Lloyd formed a new trio for this task, drafting in old sidekicks Jason Moran on piano and Marvin Sewell on guitar. It proves an inspired move: while Moran continues to amplify and define Lloyd’s leads, Sewell plays counterpoint, pinging high notes and spiky solos into the mix.
Lloyd remains a sophisticated player, his sax and occasional flute full of the elegance heard on his 1966 breakthrough Forest Flower, a hippie favourite (a shared interest in meditation later won Lloyd honorary Beach Boys membership). His mood here is mostly pensive, though he joins Sewell on a fierce bottleneck blues track, a nod to Lloyd’s apprenticeship with local heroes such as Howlin’ Wolf. Blues for Langston, a tribute to Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, is delightfully funky; his homage to tabla player Zakir Hussain, a close friend, tender and spiritual. A colossus at work.