Customer Reviews

Voice in the Night

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Charles Lloyd- Voice In The Night (ECM 1674)

The most obvious thing that strikes you about this recording is that it sounds so much like an American jazz record, especially on Homage where Lloyd pays tribute to a few ghosts, like Coltrane and Billie Holiday. Compared to Charles Lloyd's previous five outings on ECM, featuring Nordic players extraordinary like Bobo Stenson etc, playing textural minimalist jazz with long wailing sax notes, this is what Lloyd would term an American jazz album, more straight ahead and sounding like all are having a great time. It's hard not to remember or even think of John Coltrane when you hear this, those wide long sweeps of sound, extended phrasings on a single breath, the choice of notes. It's too close to the bone sometimes but truth is even if Coltrane had not been around and influenced as many people as he did, Charles Lloyd would still sound the way he always has on any of the other ECM releases. Abercrombie sounds to my ears like he did in his earlier days ie Timeless. This is the first time in many years that Lloyd has employed a guitarist.Szabo Gabor was his last guitarist and that was too many years ago now to try and remember. Abercrombie of course cites Szabo as one of his earliest influences, someone who allowed him to break free of conventional forms of guitar playing. As well Dave Holland turns up on bass. Billy Higgins on drums. Lloyd has been playing on and off with Billy Higgins since the 1950's and dedicated his last album (Canto) to him after a long illness on Higgin's part. Charles Lloyd has said in previous articles that he is following on in the steps of saints and sages. There is as always this wonderful sense of quiet spirituality. On Voices new and old material is revisited. A haunting sound, memories of another time but still very contemporary. These are late night excursions. Lloyd sounds best when performing ballads but overall this is a great record.

 

After five tenor-plus-rhythm recordings on ECM, Charles Lloyd decided to shift gears and look back to his musical roots. One of his first major gigs was the musical directorship of Chico Hamilton's innovative post-bop group, playing side by side with Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo. That group (represented on albums like A Different Journey and The Man from Two Worlds) debuted several of the pieces which appear on this album -- "Voice in the Night", various shorter pieces in the "Pocket Full of Blues" medley, and the perennial "Forest Flower".

The personnel is also quite different than the earlier ECM albums, which usually included European rhythm section members and drummer Billy Hart. Lloyd drafts his old LA buddy Billy Higgins on drums, then completes the piano-less rhythm section with guitarist John Abercrombie and bassist Dave Holland. There's little of the chamber-music flavor, world music exoticism or Coltrane-ish moodyness that pervades the earlier albums.

Instead, we get a surprisingly straight-ahead album by ECM standards. You can hear reflections of the Hamilton-Szabo group matured by age and experience. Lloyd's tenor is as robust and powerful as on Canto or All My Relations, with a greater nod to his Memphis roots. His ballad performances are beautiful and often profound (especially the title track and Strayhorn's "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing") but without the occasional meditative stillness that crept in a few years before. On the more up-tempo tracks his cheeky wit frequently pops up; check out how he plays with the rhythm section on the blues medley. And the take on "Forest Flower" is one of the best of his career, light and loosely swinging.

This is one of the best Lloyd albums on ECM, second only to Canto and maybe All My Relations. Like All My Relations, it contains a greater variety of tempos than much of his ECM work, and an excellent collection of compositions to boot. If you want to hear what Lloyd's been up to since emerging from retirement in the 80s, this is one of the places to start.

This is a sweet sounding CD with some great haunting qualities too. The musicianship and subtle interplay is top-notch from Lloyd, Holland, Abercrombie and Higgins. Highly recommended.

The interplay between Charles Lloyd and John Abercrombie alone is worth the price of this disc. They play in and around one another beautifully. Cleary, this quartet was having a great time making this recording.

This album has to be one of my favorite jazz albums from start to finish selfless balanced and just beautiful if and when charles toured for this album it had to be exquisite night in night out i just loved it....8 fantastic tunes performed wonderfully nothing forced just flowed...

Fairly early on in this album, it struck me that something was different. The music seemed lighter, with a greater joy and lift to it. It was only when I checked the personnel that the penny dropped: sax, bass, drums, guitar...but no piano. I have many Lloyd albums, all dearly loved for the impeccable musicianship, whatever the band's make-up, but this is the first without keyboards. If you were to ask me which I'd prefer, I'd always go for the richness of piano, or organ. But this album was a revelation: the combination of wind and string instruments gives the individual pieces such a lightness of touch, that they seem to soar.
The delicacy of the opener 'Voice in the night', with Abercrombie's deft guitar shadowed by Holland's bass, Higgins shimmering percussion, allows Lloyd's melody lines the transparency of watercolour, rather than the richer oil canvas which piano secures. And it works! This is music as light as gossamer at times, for even 'Requiem' gets a lift from this treatment. On top of that, a sense of new freedom bubbles through in the joyful bounce of 'Dorotea's Studio', and this reaches new heights of delight in the wonderfully smiling 'Pocket Full of Blues'. 'Forest Flower' emerges newly minted, and the Strayhorn piece 'A Flower is a Lovesome Thing' provides a perfect conclusion to an album of sheer effervescent pleasure. Sheer, unadulterated magic.

Sleek standards-upgrades is a smokey set of satisfying but never outstanding bop which often sees its star upstaged by his sidemen.

Charles Lloyd's recordings on ECM have been truly remarkable, some of the finest jazz recordings ever made, the kinds of things one would definitely want to take to that proverbial desert island (the island with the stereo setup--and, oh yeah, electricity). Most of those recordings have been made with Scandinavian sidemen, notably Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson, but Voice in the Night finds Lloyd in the company of a whole new crew: John Abercrombie on guitar, Dave Holland on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. My goodness, what a dream lineup!

For this outing, Lloyd plays tenor exclusively--no flute or oboe this time around--and he and Abercrombie trade some nice melodic ideas as they weave their way through the cuts. Higgins plays with energy and imagination, with his work on the cymbals being especially fascinating to follow. Holland is his usual self--very solid, but never seeming to play any cliches. The music ranges over ballads and blues, and then with the final two cuts we get Lloyd's most famous tune,"Forest Flower," and a cover of Billy Strayhorn's "A Flower is a Lovesome Thing."

Voice in the Night is a simply wonderful recording, one that anyone who appreciates jazz should hear; furthermore, it is the kind of recording that would be the perfect introduction to jazz for someone who likes music but has not yet ventured into the jazz realm. Buy a copy for yourself and a couple of extra copies to give to your niece and nephew.

Lloyd seems to have found his Ultimate Band. Each player perfectly complements his fellows. Features some of John Abercrombe's finest playing on disc. Ditto, Dave Holland. Higgins, as usual, is a master of taste and coloration. With his recent passing, he will be greatly missed.

Comprising mostly mid-tempo balladic compositions, the songs here have a haunting, wistful quality that is very attractive. Especially check out "Dorotea's Studio," to my ears one Lloyd's most satisfying performances ever. But it's all good. Definately a high-point in a long and distinguished career. Proves my theory that when the ECM thing works, it sometimes works wonders.

Charles Lloyd is one of our few truly original voices. His work on Voices in the Night is exemplary Lloyd - suitable for that prosaic 10 cd desert island set. He speaks (figuratively) with the authority of a man who has paid up all of his dues and has decided to make the world a better place by virtue of his rooted, yet unique saxophone playing. His song writing abilities are remarkable and the choice of guitar in the place of piano was inspired. This is a beautiful album - his best (I think) since Notes from Big Sur.