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Charles Lloyd: Trios: Chapel

By Dan McClenaghan
July 30, 2022
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Blue Note Records has a history of boasting strong stables of players. In the 1950s and 60s, we could look to

Art Blakey

drums
1919 - 1990

" data-original-title="" title="">Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, trumpeter

Lee Morgan

trumpet
1938 - 1972

" data-original-title="" title="">Lee Morgan, pianist

Herbie Hancock

piano
b.1940

" data-original-title="" title="">Herbie Hancock, saxophonist

" data-original-title="" title="">Wayne Shorter—and if ever there was an incomplete list compiled, that one is it. Time rolls on. Twenty years (or thereabouts) into the new millennium, the label hosts an all-star roster once again—pianist

Gerald Clayton

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Gerald Clayton, saxophonist

Melissa Aldana

saxophone

" data-original-title="" title="">Melissa Aldana, sax man

Immanuel Wilkins

saxophone, alto
b.1997

" data-original-title="" title="">Immanuel Wilkins, guitarist

Julian Lage

guitar, electric

" data-original-title="" title="">Julian Lage, and—to wrap up another partial listing— veteran saxophonist Charles Lloyd.

At eighty-four years of age, Lloyd—after a sixty-plus year career that includes album releases on Atlantic, Columbia and ECM Records, Warner Music—extends his twenty-first century connection with Blue Note Records via a "Trio of Trios," three separate trio albums, featuring three different groups of players, released one at a time on different dates over a mid-to-late 2022 time span.

The first of these, Trios: Chapel, was named for the San Antonio, Texas, Elizabeth Coates Chapel in which it was recorded. Lloyd's choice of bandmates: guitarist

Bill Frisell

guitar, electric
b.1951

" data-original-title="" title="">Bill Frisell and bassist

Thomas Morgan

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Thomas Morgan, a duo teaming responsible for a pair of gorgeous and understated ECM albums, Small Town (2017) and Epistrophy (2019). In addition, Frisell is a member of Lloyd's other Blue Note recording group, the Marvels; so there is a connection, a built-in rapport at play in the spontaneous-sounding set of tunes.

Overall, the group displays a light touch, making buoyant and delicately pretty sounds that vibrate in an understated chapel resonance. An obvious parallel is with the Paul Motian recordings the drummer did with saxophonist

Joe Lovano

drums
b.1952

" data-original-title="" title="">Joe Lovano and Frisell for ECM Records: It Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago (1985) and I Have The Room Above Her (2005). Lloyd's sound is gentle, bird-like (not Charlie Parker "bird-like," but possessed of an actual ornithological elocution), opening with the prettiest version of

Billy Strayhorn

piano
1915 - 1967

" data-original-title="" title="">Billy Strayhorn's "Bloodcount" imaginable. Frisell is succinct, his notes and chords ringing clear and true, unembellished, while Morgan's deft underpinnings offer a perfect support without calling out for attention.

Dreamy, compelling, non-propulsive sounds that exist outside of time, as a sort of soundtrack to some kind of tranquil enlightenment, or as a testament to "right now."

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Track Listing

Bloodcount; Song My Lady Sings; Ay Amor; Beyond Darkness; Doroteas's Studio.

Personnel

Charles Lloyd

saxophone

Bill Frisell

guitar, electric

Thomas Morgan

bass, acoustic

Additional Instrumentation

Charles Lloyd: alto flute.

Album information

Title: Trios: Chapel | Year Released: 2022 | Record Label: Blue Note Records

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