Jazz On The Beach 127: Charles Lloyd & Gary Crosby
This week's radio show and playlist
Ever since launching in 2021, Jazz On The Beach has regularly played music by the ‘marvel-ous’ saxophonist and flautist Charles Lloyd who celebrates his 86th birthday tomorrow (Friday). Blue Note mark the occasion by releasing The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow recorded with his superb group featuring pianist Jason Moran, double bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Brian Blade, and over the past few weeks I’ve played two excellent tracks from it - Monk’s Dance and Defiant, Tender Warrior.
But for this week’s show, we’re heading back to the ‘60’s and Lloyd’s earliest days as a bandleader with his gorgeous ballad How Can I Tell You, recorded live at Judson Hall, New York City, on September 3rd 1965. It’s taken from the double album Manhattan Stories (Resonance, 2014), with an outstanding lineup of guitarist Gabor Szabó, double bassist Ron Carter and drummer Pete La Roca Sims.
It’s a deeply emotional performance from Lloyd and there are excellent solos from Szabó and Carter too. As Lloyd said to Michael Cuscuna from the sleeve notes:
‘I wrote How Can I Tell You for my first love, Lady Day…words could never express what she meant to me. As a child when the lights went out, I put my radio under my pillow to listen to her late into the night. I knew she was singing just for me’.
There are precious few musicians who can span the ‘50s to the present day creating so much wonderful music. A Very Happy Birthday, Mr Lloyd!
The Tomorrow’s Warriors jazz music education and artist development scheme co-founded by Gary Crosby and Janine Irons 33 years ago, has had such a huge impact on British jazz that it’s sometimes overlooked just how a good a double bassist Crosby is. He was a founding member of the Jazz Warriors with Courtney Pine, and continues to lead the mighty Jazz Jamaica as well as his own trio and quartet lineups with up and coming Young Warriors.
That idea goes back to 1991, when Crosby formed Nu Troop as a band that would offer a nurturing environment for an ever-changing lineup of young musicians, just the way Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers did. On this week’s show is Transmigration, the opening track from their only album Migrations (Dune, 1997), with Crosby leading trumpeter Neil Yates (whose composition this is), tenor saxophonist Denys Baptiste, alto saxophonist Tony Kofi, pianist Alex Wilson and drummer Robert Fordjour. I consider this to be one of the most outstanding group performances in British jazz, with dazzling musicianship, driving energy and full of spirit and hope for the future.
Below is a short animation promo for Tomorrow’s Warriors/Dune using Transmigration that was made in 2010.
A Tomorrow’s Warriors alumni who has gone on to big things with his groups Sons Of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming is Shabaka. Now moving away from saxophone in favour of flutes and other instruments, he plays clarinet on End Of Innocence with pianist Jason Moran, drummer Nasheet Waits and percussionist Carlos Niño. It’s taken from his eagerly anticipated Perceive It’s Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace (Impulse! April 12th).
One of the most exciting Young Warriors coming through is 23 year old pianist Sultan Stevenson who is performing with his trio at SXSW in Austin this week and will be one of the showcase acts at this year’s Jazzahead! in Bremen on April 11th. Here’s his terrific Guilty By Association from the debut album Faithful One (Whirlwind Recordings, 2023) with double bassist Jacob Gryn and drummer Joel Waters. I reviewed the album exactly a year ago for London Jazz News, you can read it here. Since then he’s won Jazz Newcomer of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, surely the first of many.
Among the other highlights this week is the catchy new single from singer Jo Harrop’s collaboration with producer Larry Klein on Beautiful Fools from her upcoming Path Of A Tear (Lateralize), and probably the most moving solo piano version of Wichita Lineman you’ll ever hear from Gary Husband’s Songs Of Love And Solace (BFD, March 8th). Also the 84 year old alto saxophonist Charles McPherson is sounding good on Surge from his new album Reverence (Smoke Sessions, April 26th) which was recorded live at Smoke Jazz Club in New York with trumpeter Terrell Stafford, pianist Jeb Patton, double bassist David Wong and drummer Billy Drummond.
Back to the ‘70s with guitarist Louis Stewart’s Footprints from Louis The First (Livia, March 5th), a reissue of the 1976 album but with Wayne Shorter’s track now appearing for the first time. There’s Azimuth’s beautiful Siren Song from Azimuth (ECM, 1977) featuring the voice of Norma Winstone, pianist John Taylor and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and just squeezing in to the beginning of the decade is pianist Ahmad Jamal’s version of Herbie Hancock’s Dolphin Dance from The Awakening (Impulse! 1970) with double bassist Jamil Nasser and drummer Frank Grant.
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