The landmark performance took place out of doors, as so many of Charles Lloyd’s performances did in the 1960s at rock festivals around the world. The quartet included Charles Lloyd on tenor saxophone and flutes, Keith Jarrett on piano, Jack DeJohn ette on drums, and Cecil McBee on string bass.
The two-part piece starts with Sunrise John ette’s drum solo is nothing short of sublime, but early on, Charles Lloyd hands the reins over to Keith Jarrett who delivers arguably the best jazz piano solo ever performed by anybody, before or after.
In the second part, Sunset, Lloyd and Jarrett get into some serious, yet fanciful improvising over a gentle, slightly Latin vamp. Their tenor and piano solos each rise to intense highs that recede back to softer touches—Lloyd finishes with wispy double tones and Jarrett ends by plucking (beautifully) the piano strings. The tune gradually fades into the sunset to the approving applause of the audience.
Sadly, being only fifteen years old at the time, I did not attend the Monterey Jazz Festival. I did see the quartet once in the late sixties at Eagles Auditorium in Seattle
I didn’t take jazz seriously until 1969; didn’t even hear Forest Flower until 1970. When I did, I immediately loved Charles Lloyd’s delicate attack, the way he could precede a note with a fairy-like arpeggio way up and back down to the melody note, and the way he played off key, a bit flat, to create an emotional strength more powerful than if he played in tune.
Charles Lloyd’s tenor playing, to my ear, was most influenced by John Coltrane, especially in the up-tempo works, but Lloyd went beyond Coltrane to his own unique sound. He is an absolute master of slow ballads, again with those floating glissando grace notes, plaintive, upward wisps of notes that fall back to the melody (listen to Song of Her, off the Forest Flower album). He also uses difficult-to-achieve sounds—double notes, false fingering, harmonics—throughout his playing. Charles Lloyd has continued in that inimitable style his entire career to this day.
Whether or not you like all of Charles Lloyd’s work, the 1966 FOREST FLOWER album is seminal in the history of jazz. One more thing: in the middle of the Sunset section, while Jarrett is building momentum toward a waterfall of sound, you can hear a single engine Cessna fly by overhead. Sort of an inside joke. I wonder if the musicians thought so. And another thing: is there anyone out there who attended the concert who can tell me what someone yelled out from the audience toward the very end of Lloyd’s playing in Forest Flower, receiving a cluster of applause? I would love to know.
I was at the Eagles Auditorium Charles Lloyd concert which was a first date with a Norwegian college Jr from Long Island.
ReplyDeleteThe band the played before Lloyd was horrible. Went out and sat on the floor in lobby and waited for it get over with.
I had purchased Lloyd's LoveIn album and the guys in dorm at SPU were freaked out about it. They had never heard jazz that sounded like that. For several of them it was their first exposure to Keith Jarrett who played a solo, think it was called Sunday Morning.
Dear Monsieur Bartholomew: thank you for your response! That band that played before Charles Lloyd was the James Cotton Blues Band. I was heavily into blues at the time and i remember thinking James Cotton's harmonica chops were nearly as good as Paul Butterfield, the master. I understand not everyone liking his stuff, but i loved it. I hope things turned out ok with the girl from Long Island.
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