Charles Lloyd Rabo De Nube CD

Charles Lloyd: Charles Lloyd (alto flute, tarogato, tenor saxophone); Jason Moran (piano); Reuben Rogers (double bass); Eric Harland (drums, percussion).
Recording information: Theater Basel (04/27/2007).
Photographer: Dorothy Darr.
A fixture on the jazz scene since the early 1960s, reedist Charles Lloyd has played with practically everyone under the sun and has demonstrated remarkable variety in his playing, ranging across post-bop, chamber jazz, free jazz, soul-jazz, and pop. Lloyd was approaching 70 at the time of RABO DE NUBE's release in 2008; the disc, a live performance, is some of the most vital and engaging of his career. In part this is thanks to the spectacularly talented personnel: pianist Jason Moran, drummer Eric Harlan, and bassist Reuben Rogers are some of the best younger players in the game. While Lloyd's sax and flute work stand out (on "Ramanujan" he also plays tarogato, a Middle Eastern wind instrument), this is undeniably a group effort, one that will be of interest of any modern jazz fan.
Given that Charles Lloyd has been recording for Manfred Eicher's ECM label since 1989, it seems odd that Rabo de Nube (translation: Tail of a Cloud) is his first live quartet outing for the imprint, though he's done so in other combinations. Yet, given that this recording was issued a mere four days before the great saxophonist's 70th birthday, it is also a full circle of sorts for the Lloyd Quartet. Most of Lloyd's early quartet albums were recorded live for Atlantic between 1966 and 1968, seven in total, with the live band recording its first date over 40 years ago and featuring a young Keith Jarrett as its pianist. This association became a blueprint of sorts for a lineage of his subsequent pianists who have all gone on to their own measures of excellence as leaders: Michel Petrucciani, Bobo Stenson, Brad Mehldau, and Geri Allen. Jason Moran, the pianist here, is a leader in his own right, having also played with Wayne Shorter and Lee Konitz, to name just two; more importantly, his teachers offer a clue as to how his highly individual voice was developed -- Andrew Hill, Jaki Byard, and Muhal Richard Abrams. Moran joins Lloyd and longtime -- and immensely gifted -- drummer Eric Harland (who went to high school with Moran in Houston) and new bassist Ruben Rogers, who has previously been a member of groups led by the late Jackie McLean, Roy Hargrove, and Mulgrew Miller.
Recorded in Basel during the band's European tour in 2007, the band takes a very different approach to some familiar tunes. For starters, it has to do with style: Moran is a more physical player than many of the pianists Lloyd has employed in the past; his playing is more chord-oriented and percussive, less elegant and soulful than Allen's perhaps, less ornate than Petrucciani's, and certainly less contemplative than Stenson's. The material choices are wide-ranging. There's the hard-blowing "Prometheus," on which Lloyd and Moran walk the margins a bit as Harland pushes them toward it and Rogers holds down a swinging background rhythmic tempo, elaborating on the choruses as a way of focusing rhythm and harmonic investigation. Another blower on the set is "Sweet Georgia Bright," which Lloyd has used live in the past, but was first recorded when he was a member of Cannonball Adderley's group in 1964 with pianist Joe Zawinul. Moran's funky, hard-driving solo and the interplay of the rhythm section are simply remarkable. Lloyd's immense ability to soar over the top and take a nugget like this and infuse it with new fire is an asterisk highlighting his place as one of the true masters of the horn. Lloyd's alto flute gets a beautiful workout on "Booker's Garden," written for classmate Booker Little. His lyricism is only eclipsed by his deep soul groove -- which Moran takes to the bank in his own solo that lends the tune a different dynamic, one much bolder and centered in the middle of the keyboard. The playing by Rogers on the track is beautifulDown Beat (p.67) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "It's a diverse and hearty voyage, passing through cosmic grandeur, reverent homage, spiritual splendor, dance and romance, plus a witty pair of allusions to Thelonious Monk."
JazzTimes (p.74) - "It is precisely wild lyricism that this concert is about. The opening 'Prometheus' introduces the aesthetic. Lloyd, alone and possessed, oscillates upward, and is carried on the swirling polyrhythms of bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland..."