Sangam

Charles Lloyd with Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland

Sangam

(ECM)

US release date: 4 April 2006

UK release date: 24 April 2006

Truly, this new trio – featuring Lloyd on saxes and flute, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, and the young American drummer Eric Harland - is an absolute revelation. Recorded live in California in 2004, this CD documents their debut performance, and positively crackles with energy and invention. The gig was conceived as a memorial concert for Lloyd's late friend and collaborator, drummer Billy Higgins, and set about revisiting some of the pan-cultural regions that the two explored in recordings such as 2001's Which Way is East. In fact, Lloyd has consistently been looking east for inspiration since at least the mid-'60s, which explains in part why he was so popular among the counterculture of the time, sharing bills with the Byrds and the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore. Forty years later, Sangam represents his most complete and exhilarating expression of that search.

Lloyd is on stellar form throughout, conjuring hot, writhing shapes from tenor and alto saxes, flute, and wooden taragato that somehow manage to combine husky, boppish blowing with snakelike, eastern sonorities. But it's the twin percussionists who truly define this trio's presence. Hussain's tablas set up minutely detailed rhythmic patterns, recorded with amazing clarity, that carry enough musical information to entertain like an entire ensemble. Similarly, Harland's Elvin Jones-ish polyrhythmic batteries wander all over the beat with breathtaking invention, often sounding like a whole troupe of drummers. When the two play together, entering into extended dialogues, the result is utterly enthralling and devastatingly explosive. Rhythm never felt so vital.

During the long trio passages, with Lloyd blowing to heavy percussive accompaniment, the absence of bass or piano seems to up the anchor and liberate the music, allowing it to become a kind of "free-groove," reminiscent in places of Ornette Coleman's foot-tapping yet cerebral excursions. In any case, Hussain's tablas do an admirable job of providing the bottom-end, making the most of the bass notes from the larger, "duggi" tabla to provide sensitive and witty melodic support – even throwing in lighthearted quotes from Sonny Rollins' "St Thomas" and Rossini's William Tell Overture.

Elsewhere, the musicians break away from this hypnotic template to reveal other talents. "Nataraj" is a short and satisfying solo piano piece that finds Lloyd setting out chords like thick globs of acrylics on canvas, accentuating shape and texture. For Hussain's composition, "Gunam", Harland takes the piano stool, picking out a stubborn melodic and rhythmic scrap that holds the tune together, providing a glowering backdrop against which Hussain pours out a vocal performance full of naked vulnerability and spiritual yearning, that almost breaks down into moans and weeping as he delves into the deepest registers he can muster - and leading into a Lloyd flute solo that brilliantly captures the earthy timbre of the vocals before transforming into something more transcendent, like enlightenment unfolding.

Clearly, this album is the product of some deep thinking and heartfelt spiritual beliefs but the bottom line is that it swings like hell. There won't be many albums released this year that will cause this reviewer to involuntarily yell "yeah!" out loud, while wearing headphones late at night in a darkened room and risk waking his sleeping children. Highly recommended.

— 1 May 2006

Charles Lloyd soars to new heights on 'Sangam'

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted on Friday, April 28, 2006

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Charles Lloyd has always remained deeply rooted in the jazz tradition and the blues of his native Memphis, Tenn., while at the same time sharing a passion for Eastern music and cultures. Most of the saxophonist's recordings have found him in a conventional small-combo jazz setting with piano and/or guitar, drums and bass. But his new trio, Sangam, with two percussionists, displays a bold new step for the still-adventurous 68-year-old.

Sangam, which means "confluence, a meeting place, a gathering or coming together," features astonishing East-meets-West rhythmic interplay between jazz drummer Eric Harland and the classical Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, known for his collaborations with guitarist John McLaughlin's group Shakti and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. Hussain's hand-played tabla fills both a rhythmic and melodic role -- he even throws in a playful quote from the "William Tell Overture" at one point -- while Harland has a deft touch with his sticks on the jazz drum kit, allowing him to effectively vary the tone and volume.

Inspired by the fluid and constantly evolving rhythms, a reinvigorated Lloyd plays with a passion and fire missing from some of his recent, more languorous recordings, showing a Coltrane-like intensity with his arpeggio runs on "Tales of Rumi," one of several older Lloyd compositions among the nine tracks that are reconfigured through the prism of his new trio.

Lloyd also offers listeners a rich instrumental palette as he switches between tenor and alto saxophones and even plays some piano. He opens the session with "Dancing On One Foot" on which he plays the taragato, a wooden Hungarian instrument that sounds like an Indian snake charmer's sinuous flute, and closes with one of his early compositions "Little Peace," on which his flute playing evokes memories of his popular "Forest Flower" live recording from the '60s.

"Sangam," Lloyd's first live recording among his 12 releases on ECM dating back to 1990, documents a memorial concert in 2004 honoring his close friend, drummer Billy Higgins. Lloyd doesn't so much act as a leader, but instead allows his trio mates lots of space and freedom to exchange ideas, and as a result he soars to new creative heights.

-- Charles J. Gans