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Charles Lloyd: Charles Lloyd: Quartets
Terje Rypdal
guitarb.1947
Chick Corea
piano1941 - 2021
There are plenty more surprises to come, but another purpose of the Old & New Masters Edition series is to collect records together that have some kind of core concept, like drummer
Jack DeJohnette
drumsb.1942
Jan Garbarek
saxophoneb.1947
Bobo Stenson
pianob.1944
Quartets represents Lloyd's full return to leading groups after a lengthy hiatus following his renowned 1960s albums with DeJohnette and pianist
Keith Jarrett
pianob.1945
Michel Petrucciani
piano1962 - 1999
All that changed in 1989, when Lloyd was invited by ECM label head
"
data-original-title="" title="">Manfred Eicher to come to Rainbow Studio in Oslo to make a record with a group that already had its own history. Pianist Bobo Stenson, double bassist 
Palle Danielsson
bass, acoustic1946 - 2024
Jon Christensen
drums1943 - 2020
The result, Fish Out of Water, was released in 1990 and, while a welcome return for Lloyd with some attractive new material, it was more a harbinger of even better things to come, as Lloyd slowly began to build a quartet that, finally settling in 1993, would continue for five more years and see Lloyd through to mid-'98, when he would begin working almost exclusively with American—or, in cases like bassist
Dave Holland
bassb.1946
That said, the performances on Fish Out of Water are certainly strong, with tracks like the gorgeous "Mirror"—to be revisited, more than a decade later, on his next regular working quartet's 2010 album of the same name—demonstrative of Lloyd's singular way with a ballad. Lloyd's singular skill on flute can also be heard on the closing ballad, "Tellaro." Lloyd has all-too-often been compared to 
John Coltrane
saxophone1926 - 1967
One thing the Nordics are particularly good at is playing rubato, and Lloyd exploits that talent on "The Dirge," which takes nearly four of its ten minutes to settle into a defined pulse. Until Fish, Stenson hadn't recorded for the label in 13 years, and his sole solo effort, Underwear (1971) remains woefully out of print, beyond a brief, limited edition Japanese release. His participation in Lloyd's group also rekindled his own relationship with the label, leading to a more spread-out run of trio recordings that began with Reflections (1996) and continues to this day with the most recent (and exceptional) Indicum (2012). Lloyd must have found him a most simpatico foil, as he's the only player to appear on all five of Quartet's collected recordings. But if Fish Out of Water demonstrated anything, it was that Lloyd (and Stenson) was back. Not yet at full strength, perhaps, but most certainly back.
Two years and four months passed before Lloyd returned to Oslo and Rainbow Studios to record his follow-up, Notes from Big Sur (1992), but it was worth the wait. If Fish Out of Water suffers in any way, it's that Christensen had, by this time, become a far more textural drummer, less concerned with delivering a clearer sense of time and, instead, working heavily with implication. In his own brief liner notes to a subsequent ECM release of self-chosen tracks from his vast ECM discography as a sideman, :rarum XX: Selected Recordings (2004), Christensen wrote:
I. Band feeling is more important than bravura
II. Less is More
III. How fast can you play slower?
IV. A beat is not always what you think it is.
All admirable traits, to be sure, and ones that have served his career very, very well, but not, perhaps, so well-matched with Lloyd's ultimate intent, coming, as the saxophonist does, from the American tradition where a certain element of swing is a prerequisite. For Notes from Big Sur, Lloyd made two important changes, one that stuck and one that didn't. First, he replaced Christensen with
Ralph Peterson
drums1962 - 2021
Don Byron
clarinetb.1958
The second and ultimately more important change was recruiting
Anders Jormin
bassThe result is an album that swings harder on tracks like "Eyes of Love" and remains equally steeped in darker balladry on "Requiem" while occupying a space somewhere in-between on "Sam Song." Danielsson has always been a faultless anchor and strong soloist, but here, Jormin becomes a more equal partner (as he is in any group in which he participates) in Lloyd's increasingly egalitarian group. Nowhere is this clearer than on the two-part "Pilgrimage to the Mountain" that bookends four additional Lloyd compositions and ultimately ends the recording. Both tracks begin with Jormin alone and shine a bright spotlight on the bassist's soaring arco, one of unfailing accuracy in both tone and use of harmonics. Jormin had already developed a number of extended techniques for his instrument, also demonstrated on his own solo recordings like Eight Pieces (Dragon, 1988), and between his broader purview and inherent chemistry with Stenson, clearly Lloyd had found his bassist, as he remained in the quartet from this point forward.
Another change was that Lloyd left his flute at home for this date, focusing solely on tenor saxophone. It's a choice he made for the quartet's next record, The Call (1993), recorded 20 months after Big Sur, and the date where Lloyd finally settled on a lineup with which he'd remain through to the late 1990s. The Call is also the first of Lloyd's albums to adopt what would become an ECM standard: beginning with five seconds of silence. Much has been written about these five seconds, including an entire chapter in the (sadly) German-only book , Der Blaue Klang (Wolke Verlagsges, 2010). Here, as a lead-in to the rubato "Nocturne," which Lloyd would revisit nearly a decade later on Lift Every Voice (2002), it acts as a further calming device; a chance to breathe and clear the mind before the music begins, the same way Eicher describes his approach to recording in All About Jazz's recent coverage of the ECM Exhibition in Munich, ECM: A Cultural Archeology: "You have to be empty before you come to a recording, and then start again."With The Call, Lloyd enlists
Billy Hart
drumsb.1940
Lloyd has long been about cultural cross-pollination, even as his feet remain firmly rooted in the American tradition, and The Call represents his most seamless marriage of a multiplicity of concerns to that point. A deeply spiritual man, he can also be quite enigmatic as a bandleader. In a 2004 All About Jazz interview with Jormin, the bassist revealed much about Lloyd's approach:
"His compositions," explains Jormin, "were quite often just sketches, a little unfinished or a little vague, probably on purpose. He would come with directions, because we did rehearse—not very much, but we did rehearse. But his directions were very typical Charles Lloyd—I can give you an example from my first rehearsal, which I'll never forget. He looked at me and said, 'Give me some St. Petersburg.' That was what he wanted to hear from me, and I was of course, quite unsure. What kind of music is that? And another, 'Take me to India.' Most of his instructions were so emotional and colored by his imagination and his way of thinking musically, so what they actually meant, both for me and for Bobo, was, 'Go ahead guys, and play what you think fits the simple sketch I've done.' Bobo and I would also do some work with his compositions—we added a chord here, added a bar there, and suddenly the sketches worked very well. Charles never asked, 'What did you do with this composition, suddenly it sounds good,' but it was ultimately a good collective process."
With the right lineup in place, the collective process becomes even clearer and more compelling on The Call. Like Peterson, Hart's a player capable of great power, swinging with great authority on "Glimpse" and turning even fierier on "Imke," but he's also capable of delicacy and texture, with his brushwork on "Amarma" particularly tasteful. Hart also lights a fire under Lloyd on the album closer, "Brother on the Rooftop," an incendiary (and, for this quartet, first-time) duo with just Hart and Lloyd that still manages to close the album on a lyrical note, even as the saxophonist resorts to the occasional screech and multiphonic. With a résumé that includes working with pianists
Herbie Hancock
pianob.1940
McCoy Tyner
piano1938 - 2020
Joe Zawinul
keyboards1932 - 2007
Wayne Shorter
saxophone1933 - 2023
Stan Getz
saxophone, tenor1927 - 1991
Dave Liebman
saxophoneb.1946
Zbigniew Seifert
violin1946 - 1979
That Lloyd's career continues with such strength two decades later as he approaches his 75th birthday, and despite considerable change and diversity in his ECM discography once this quartet's life was over, is a testament to Eicher's confidence in Lloyd's instincts—a confidence further proven when, after Eicher produced the five recordings in this box and the subsequent Voice in the Night, he relinquished the producer's role to Lloyd and the saxophonist's wife, Dorothy Darr (whose artwork and photos adorned the original single-disc releases of the five discs in this box), from there on, the duo taking charge of all subsequent recording sessions with the exception of the live Athens Concert, where Eicher reassumes the primary producer role instead of the executive producer title to which he has been credited on the rest of Lloyd's post-new millennium recordings.
It's an important distinction, because with Eicher being a rarity of his own—an active producer who makes every duo a trio, every trio a quartet and every quartet a quintet—his stamp is on these records as well, though in ways that may be less obvious than on some of his other thousand-plus productions for the label. And if Lloyd would, on later recordings, begin to introduce cover material as well as looking back at songs he recorded and released in the 1960s, when he was one of the first jazz artists to sell a million copies of an album—as well as culling material from the period of Quartets on albums including Sangam (2006), Mirror (2010) and Athens Concert (2011)—at this time, he was largely focused on new and original material, with the sole exception of the The Call's penultimate "The Blessing," a rubato tone poem based on "Ramakrishna Pranam," a theme written by Swami Saradananda.
1995's All My Relations continues to build on the strength of Lloyd's solidified quartet, with Lloyd once again introducing flute into the mix, as well as the more nasally Chinese oboe, which he uses on the closing, a cappella "Milarepa." The increasing confidence of the quartet can be heard from the outset on Lloyd's "Piercing the Veil," where the melody is bounced, call-and-response style, with Stenson. By this time, beyond the pianist's own trio—which would release Reflections on ECM the following year, despite being recorded three years prior—Stenson and Jormin were also a part of 
Tomasz Stańko
trumpet1942 - 2018
Tony Oxley
drums1938 - 2023
Only two tracks make direct references to musical touchstones—"Thelonious Theonlyus" a reflection on the music of
Thelonious Monk
piano1917 - 1982
Bill Evans
piano1929 - 1980
Scott LaFaro
bass1936 - 1961
Paul Motian
drums1931 - 2011
Phineas Newborn, Jr.
piano1931 - 1989
Booker Little
trumpet1938 - 1961
Bobby Hutcherson
vibraphone1941 - 2016
Chico Hamilton
drums1921 - 2013
Cannonball Adderley
saxophone1928 - 1975
The title track is, for its first half, another firebrand duo for Hart and Lloyd (on tenor), before Jormin joins in, swinging hard as Lloyd continues to solo with an unusually sharp edge, Stenson finally joining in to make clear what should have been clear all along: this is a bright-tempo'd blues, where Stenson turns in a solo of effortless invention and irrefutable credibility. For those who suggest that Nordic players can't swing and can't play a proper blues, "All My Relations" lays easy waste to both claims—and one more: that you can't find this kind of music on ECM. Label naysayers seem to spend a lot of time espousing what the label isn't, when the truth is it's as much a part of the evolving tradition of the last 40 years as any label; it simply refuses to limit its purview to strict adherence to any tradition.
Listening to Quartet's five albums consecutively—recorded across a span of just over seven years, with a stable lineup for just under half that time—reveals that the best is saved for last. 1997's Canto may have been Lloyd's last recording with his transatlantic quartet before focusing on musicians at home, but it's certainly the one on which every member shines the most.
On the nearly 17-minute opener, "Tales of Rumi," Jormin opens with his extended pizzicato technique of plucking the strings behind his fingers on the neck rather than down below over the body of his double bass, returning to conventional form for a solo of singing lyricism before flipping once again, as Stenson enters, first playing the strings inside the piano box—plucking and strumming, harp-like but also taking advantage of harmonics in distinct fashion over Jormin's slowly emerging groove. When he finally returns to the keys and Hart enters, all delicate cymbals and spare rim shots, the pianist continues for another full two minutes before Lloyd enters halfway into its sixth minute. Building slowly to a Middle-Eastern-informed, dervish-like melody, the floor suddenly drops out of time until Lloyd reiterates the theme, but at a faster clip as the song takes off both in tempo and strength, with Stenson contributing another impressive solo that makes his work on this track some of his best—both on this album and the box overall.And that's just Canto's first track. The quartet's strength in delivering ballads with unshakable commitment ("How Can I Tell You"), darker-hued poetry where the connection amongst the players has reached a rarely matched level ("Desolation Sound"), energetic, post-Coltrane modality ("M") and, with the powerful closing rubato tone poem "Durga Duraga," the ultimate delivery on promises made when Lloyd first joined the label in 1989, makes Canto both bittersweet, in being this quartet's final recording, and joyous, in its demonstrative growth over the course of seven years.
Lloyd would go on to greater successes and even further diversity on albums like Which Way Is East (2004), his double-disc set of home recordings with drum legend
Billy Higgins
drums1936 - 2001
Eric Harland
drumsb.1976
Zakir Hussain
tablas1951 - 2024
Jason Moran
pianob.1975
But Quartets is where it all began, setting the stage for everything that follows and is also a testament to Eicher's instincts. With his career in relative stasis, Lloyd could have come to the label and delivered something less; instead, beginning with the very first album in Quartets and through to its fifth and final, Lloyd proves that he had plenty left to say and lots of mileage remaining in the tank. That he's still going strong—stronger, perhaps, even—nearly a quarter century later only confirms ECM's ability to bring established artists (sometimes back) into the fold—pianists Jarrett and
Steve Kuhn
pianob.1938
Enrico Rava
trumpetb.1939
Robin Williamson
guitar
Savina Yannatou
vocalsTrack Listing
CD1 (Fish Out of Water): Fish Out of Water; Haghia Sophia; The Dirge; Bharati; Eyes of Love; Mirror; Tellaro. CD2 (Notes from Big Sur): Requiem; Sister; Pilgrimage to the Mountain - Part 1, Persevere; Sam Song; Takur; Monk in Paris; When Miss Jessye Sings; Pilgrimage to the Mountain - Part 2, Surrender. CD3 (The Call): Nocturne; Song; Dwiija; Glimpse; Imke; Amarma; Figure in Blue, Memories of Duke; The Blessing; Brother on the Rooftop. CD4 (All My Relations): Piercing the Veil; Little Peace; Thelonious Theonlyus; Cape to Cairo Suite (Hommage to Mandela); Evanstide, Where Lotus Bloom; All My Relations; Hymn to the Mother; Milarepa. CD5 (Canto): Tales of Rumi; How Can I Tell You; Desolation Sound; Canto; Nachiketa's Lament; M; Durga Durga.
Personnel
Charles Lloyd
saxophoneCharles Lloyd: tenor saxophone, flute (CD1, CD4), Chinese oboe (CD4), Tibetan oboe (CD5); Bobo Stenson: piano; Palle Danielsson: double bass (CD1); Jon Christensen: drums (CD1); Anders Jormin: double bass (CD2-5); Ralph Peterson: drums (CD2); Billy Hart: drums (CD3-5).
Album information
Title: Quartets | Year Released: 2013 | Record Label: ECM Records
Tags
charles lloyd
Extended Analysis
John Kelman
ECM Records
United States
California
Terje Rypdal
Chick Corea
Jack DeJohnette
Jan Garbarek
Bobo Stenson
Keith Jarrett
Michel Petrucciani
Manfred Eicher
Palle Danielsson
Jon Christensen
Dave Holland
John Coltrane
Ralph Peterson
Don Byron
Anders Jormin
Billy Hart
Herbie Hancock
McCoy Tyner
Joe Zawinul
Wayne Shorter
Stan Getz
Dave Liebman
zbigniew seifert
Tomasaz Stanko
Tony Oxley
Thelonious Monk
Bill Evans
Scott LaFaro
Paul Motian
Phineas Newborn
Booker Little
Bobby Hutcherson
Chico Hamilton
Cannonball Adderley
Billy Higgins
Eric Harland
Zakir Hussain
jason moran
Steve Kuhn
Enrico Rava
Robin Williamson
Savina Yannatou
Charles Lloyd: Quartets
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