"Blues for Moses," "Lift Every Voice," "The Dirge." That was how sax patriarch Charles Lloyd began his free UCLA online concert (available through Jan. 31) -- with beautiful statements of liberation, prayer and mourning. It felt just right.
Lloyd's Kindred Spirits, who deliver a new Blue Note album March 12, featured a mix of familiar and new faces in the Lloyd family. Bassist Reuben Rogers has been Lloyd's rhythmic rock since 2006. Pianist Gerald Clayton has been melding his subtle adventure with Lloyd's spiritual textures for seven years; he showed an immediate rapport with the gentle polyrhythms of remarkable new drummer Justin Brown, who had established himself with a long stint alongside Ambrose Akinmusire. Guitarist Anthony Wilson, a seasoned L.A. Clayton cohort and a Lloyd collaborator since last year, brought a more traditional tone to a Lloyd guitar slot that in recent years has included Bill Frisell and Julian Lage.
Through two hourlong sets, this new band sounded like an old band. Clayton showed off his distinctive knack for blending dissonances; Brown's light touch on toms and cymbals spun an ever-changing web around Rogers' centering bass. Wilson sounded at times like Quicksilver's flowing John Cipollina, but the dark, percussive side of his plucking stood out on an extended "The Lonely One," a broken locomotive of a composition whose jagged passion was quelled at last by Lloyd's blanketing tenor. Lloyd's alto flute did a lovely Latin dance on "Booker's Garden," and he tapped the mahogany resonance of his tarogato on "Nachekita's Lament."
"No autocrats in here," muttered Lloyd at the end, but he need not have uttered the politically referential words. His music is always a sensitive collaboration within the moment, timely and timeless.
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Quincy Jones' Qwest TV is stuffed with a boggling array of vintage and recent live music concerts and documentaries featuring top names. I plunked down a scant $5 a month and dipped into this brilliantly curated collection.
Sly & Robbie Meet Nels Petter Molvaer & Eivind Aarset (2017). Genius pairing: Reggae's most important rhythm section (drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare) hooks up with captains of Scandinavian ambient jazz (trumpeter Molvaer, guitarist Aarset and electroman Vladislav Delay). Sly's a rattling revolving machine; Robbie plunks one perfect repeated note until kingdom come; everyone else spaces out into realms of cannabinoid bliss.
Archie Shepp & the Gnawas of Tangier (2000). Leave it to Shepp's ace quartet to get it right at the Essaouira Gnawa Festival. On soprano and tenor sax, Shepp demonstrates the ancient nexus between Africa and the blues, while the four Gnawas drive the trance via endless bass riffs on the gimbri (observe where Bootsy got his popping technique) and three dancers with metal shakers.
Randy Weston, "New Morning Vision" (1994). At the peak of his powers, the great pianist goes solo to mix his classic "Hi-Fly" with Ellingtonian colors and irresistible African rhythms.
Nina Simone Live at the Olympia (1968). Dig the dignity of this fearsome singer, summoning a magisterial gospel spirit from a Steinway and proclaiming, "Mr. Backlash, I'm gonna leave you with the blues."
Can't wait to sample concerts by Aretha Franklin, Captain Beefheart, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, Elvin Jones, Ornette Coleman, Blood Ulmer, Joe Zawinul, McCoy Tyner, Ravi Shankar, Rory Gallagher, Mick Taylor and many, many more.