Saxophonist Charles Lloyd shares some thoughts with Graham Reid
For exceptional people, we make an exception. And saxophonist Charles Lloyd is certainly exceptional. Not just because he enjoyed that rarity in jazz, a hit album (Forest Flower in '66 which anticipated the free spirit of the hippie era), or because he played bills with Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane.
And not because he moved in literary circles with Jack Kerouac and poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti; or that his fusion music pointed a way Miles Davis would follow.
All these things are outstanding, but we make the exception because Lloyd - now 72 - is still making remarkable and innovative music, the past two decades being the most fruitful and rewarding for him and his audience.
So for him we break the longstanding practice of declining an interview by email because Lloyd suffers from a throat condition which means he has to severely limit how much he speaks. But his courteous, thorough answers to a series of written questions are more than adequate.
If there is an irony in Lloyd's life it is that - after many years playing with Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York then carving out his own career - when commercial success came with Forest Flower (recorded live at the Monterey Jazz Festival and the first million-selling album in jazz), many jazz critics were dismissive.
"Looking back," he writes, "the criticism came from a multitude of directions - but there seemed to be a consensus that if I was experiencing such a degree of success, something must be wrong with the artistic expression. Success was equated with commercialism.
"The fact is, we were not calculating our moves with that goal in mind. We were interested in the art with a capital A. But the music connected with the youth at that time, and also with both the rock and classical world.
"It felt like the sky was the limit. The lines of demarcation between genres were blurred, the audiences were open to all kinds of music, and we were exploring new terrain every night."
His music also went global and in 1967 Lloyd and his group (which included the young pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette) were invited to play in the Soviet Union by a group of artists, musicians, writers and scientists who had formed a music appreciation society. They were the first to go to the USSR outside of a Government programme.
"The KGB made it very difficult for us but finally we were able to play for the people and it was like an explosion had taken place. But when I was invited to return to Tallinn in '97, I was given the keys to the city and some of the same people who had been there in '67 came to greet me. I was brought to tears to meet Mr Schultz, a physicist, again. He had been sent to prison for his involvement in bringing me to Tallinn."
But Lloyd's success came at a personal cost and he fell prey to the temptations of the era. His life was disintegrating and he retreated to Big Sur south of San Francisco to meditate and clean up.
He still played occasionally (he was on Beach Boys' albums and tours because he loved Brian Wilson's music, and shared a friendship, birthday and interest in transcendental meditation with Mike Love). It wasn't until the late '80s when he made a full return to public life and began recording on the European label ECM.
"Being from the warm climes of the South and [ECM founder/producer] Manfred [Eicher] being from the cool North - I was a little sceptical.
"[But] I was bowled over by the clarity of sound, and it felt like he had captured my warmth, too. I like simplicity and quality."
Since then a hallmark of his ECM albums has been their explorations of improvised quasi-classical and world music, a return to where he had begun.
He credits his current band - pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland - for being fearless musical explorers: "You have to be when you go out on a high wire every night and there is no safety net. In the arc of my life, this [group] is on the crest of the wave."
One recent album stands out in his exceptional catalogue, the double set Lift Every Voice prompted by the 9/11 attacks.
"We were in New York to open at the Blue Note on 9/11. I was staying a few blocks from the World Trade Centre and saw the second plane hit. It was a devastating time for all of us. I can still feel the pain of it today.
"Finally, I decided I should go into the studio and get it off my chest.
"All of the titles combine to make a suite of messages: Wake up, the hour is getting late. War is not the answer, only love can conquer hate."
PERFORMANCE
Who: Jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd and his New Quartet
Where: Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna
When: Sunday May 9
On disc: Forest Flower (1966); Fish Out of Water (1989); The Water is Wide (2000); Lift Every Voice (2002); Sangam (2006)
