Tone Poem by Charles Lloyd and The Marvels

Genre: Jazz

Rating: 5/5

Release date: March 12, 2021

Available on Spotify

In my opinion Charles Lloyd is an underrated musician who deserves to be ranked among the likes of Chet Baker or Stan Getz and even though this a late career release (He’s in his eighties.), this is a fine place to start if you’re uninitiated.

The album starts with two Ornette standards: the seminal Peace and Ramblin. Guitarist Bill Frisell comes off like James Blood Ulmer on the latter and really pulls it off. Then the record slides into a really nice Leonard Cohen cover, Anthem. It’s a great choice. From there the record gets breezier. Monk’s Mood, an iconic standard, is a long way from Monk’s angular staccato but don’t worry it works. Lloyd combines two of his longtime / lifetime geographic influences: Nashville and So Cal. It definitely works. The languorous afternoons of a southern summer day (a tradition I’ve held on to the best I can) and the peaceful Pacific ways of pre-crack epidemic, pre-late stage capitalism, bikini infused making out on the beach — you know… hey Waves is an underrated Lloyd album… just wanted to get that in somewhere…

Ay Amor is also a nice one, check out the original here: https://youtu.be/EC2P_alEdHc

Of course, there’s some fantastic flute on here and I mentioned Frisell so I’ll just add that he’s great under Lloyd’s leadership. This might be (and I’d have to check) but this might be the best stuff he’s done in past five years or so.

The album ends on a very Coltranian note with Prayer. Peaceful and meditative.