The Beach Boys featuring Charles Lloyd on flute 1976, Feel flows

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Charles Lloyd (born March 15, 1938)[1] is an American jazz musician. Though he primarily plays tenor saxophone and flute, he has occasionally recorded on other reed instruments, including alto saxophone and the Hungarian tárogató.

Charles Lloyd was born and grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, United States,[1] and was exposed to blues, gospel and jazz. He is of African, Cherokee, Mongolian, and Irish ancestry. 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. His early teachers included pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr. and saxophonist Irvin Reason. His closest childhood friend was trumpeter Booker Little. 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,[2] where he studied with Bartók 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. He also was a member of Gerald Wilson's big band.
Career

In 1960, Lloyd was invited to become music director of Chico Hamilton's group,[2] when Eric Dolphy left to join Charles Mingus's band. The Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó, bassist Albert "Sparky" Stinson, and trombonist Charles Bohanan 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,[2] and performed with Nat Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes. For two years he remained with Cannonball Adderley, whom he credits in his own development as a leader.

In 1964, Lloyd signed with CBS Records and began to record as a leader. His Columbia recordings, Discovery! (1964), and Of Course, Of Course (1965), led to his being voted DownBeat magazine's "New Star." He was also one of the well known and notable supporting musicians of The Beach Boys in their live performances. Of Course, Of Course was reissued by Mosaic Records in 2006.

In New York in 1966, Lloyd formed his "classic quartet" with drummer Jack DeJohnette, pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Cecil McBee (continued on by Ron McClure).[2] 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 a heterogeneous 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.[5]

Lloyd is given credit for anticipating world music by incorporating music from other cultures into his compositions, as early as the late 1950s. He describes his music as having "danced on many shores".[6] Peter Watrous stated, "Lloyd has come up with a strange and beautiful distillation of the American experience, part abandoned and wild, part immensely controlled and sophisticated."[7]

Despite recording several albums during the 1970s and occasionally appearing as a sideman, he practically disappeared from the jazz scene.[2] While practicing Transcendental Meditation in the 1970s, Lloyd played extensively with The Beach Boys, both on their studio recordings and as a member of their touring band;[2] several members of the group shared his affinity for the technique. Lloyd recorded at Brian Wilson's home studio during this period and has recalled that Brian and several other members of The Beach Boys performed on these recordings, some of which (e.g. "All Life Is One") were included on Lloyd's 1971 LP 'Warm Waters', and which also featured Quicksilver Messenger Service lead guitarist John Cipollina. Lloyd also was a member of Celebration, a band consisting of members of the Beach Boys' touring band as well as Mike Love and Al Jardine. Celebration released two albums.[8][9]

Lloyd returned to the jazz world in 1981 when he toured with Michel Petrucciani.[2] British jazz critic Brian Case called Lloyd's return "one of the events of the 1980s."[10] The group produced a special edition cassette, Night Blooming Jasmine, and two live records, Montreux 82 and A Night in Copenhagen, which also features Bobby McFerrin. After the tour, Lloyd again retreated to Big Sur.