Charles Lloyd | Artist
Charles Lloyd is an American jazz musician born 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee. Lloyd's style of jazz draws on his upbringing exposed to blues, gospel and Jazz from an early age. He was given his first saxophone at the age of nine and was riveted by 1940s radio broadcasts by Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. As a teenager Lloyd played jazz with saxophonist George Coleman, Harold Mabern, and Frank Strozier, and was a sideman for blues artists Bobby "Blue" Bland, Howlin' Wolf and B.B. King, and R & B singer Johnny Ace. In 1956, Lloyd left Memphis for Los Angeles to earn a degree in music at the University of Southern California, where he studied with Bart贸k specialist Halsey Stevens. At night, he played in jazz clubs with Ornette Coleman, Billy Higgins, Scott LaFaro, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson and other leading west coast jazz artists. In 1960 Lloyd was invited to become music director of Chico Hamilton's group, when Eric Dolphy left to join Charles Mingus's band. Guitarist G谩bor Szab贸, bassist Albert "Sparky" Stinson, and trombonist George Bohanon soon joined Lloyd in the band. Hamilton's albums on Impulse!, Passin' Thru and Man from Two Worlds, featured music arranged and written almost entirely by Lloyd. He collaborated with Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, with whom he played when he was not on the road with Hamilton. He joined the Cannonball Adderley Sextet in 1964, and performed with Nat Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. For two years he remained with Cannonball Adderley then in 1964 signed with CBS Records and began to record as a band leader. In New York in 1966, Lloyd formed his "classic quartet" with drummer Jack DeJohnette, pianist Keith Jarrett and bassists Cecil McBee, then later, Ron McClure. The Quartet's 1966 live album Forest Flower, recorded at the Monterey Jazz Festival, was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s, building an audience of rock as well as jazz fans in the prospering hippie counterculture. The Quartet toured across America and Europe. In 1967, Lloyd was voted "Jazz Artist of the Year" by DownBeat magazine. Lloyd, who is of African, Cherokee, Mongolian, and Irish ancestry himself, is credited with being one of the first Jazz players to anticipate world music, by incorporating different cultural styles into his music. In 1989 Lloyd signed with ECM records and released 11 albums on that label, then in 2015 he moved to Blue Note. From his catalogue of 34 studio albums, some standouts include Dream Weaver (1966), Forest Flower (1967), Fish Out of Water (1990), Notes From Big Sur (1992), The Call (1993), Canto (1997), The Water is Wide (2000), Hyperion With Higgins (2001), Wild Man Dance (2015) and The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (2024). Lloyd was elected into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame in 2024.
Artist Website: charleslloyd.com
Featured Albums: Charles Lloyd
Related Artists: Charles Lloyd Quartet
