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Columnated ruins domino
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Melrose, MA
Posts: 9,999
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Charles Lloyd - Canto
Some guy in my hometown has donated his jazz CD collection to the local library and I've begun borrowing them in batches. One of the best so far is Charles Lloyd's Canto from 1997, with Bobo Stenson on piano, Billy Hart on drums and a new name for me, Anders Jormin on bass. The album is marked by three very long tunes (from 13 to nearly 17 minutes in length), three meaty six-minute numbers, and a substantive three-minute coda-like piece at the end.
Canto opens with Tales of Rumi, the longest cut, which opens with a long, soft invocation-type intro. Jormin leads off with a middle-eastern figure that reminded me of a Gnawan gimbri (like something you'd hear on Randy Weston's Songs Of Our Ancestors). Hart strokes a few accents, and Bobo plucks a little inside the piano. Eventually, Hart gets a pulse going on the ride cymbal, and Jormin and Bobo fall in. Lloyd finally enters at about 6:33, and he kicks it in high gear. He and Bobo are in perfect sync, Stenson's comping almost turning into unison playing. At about 9 minutes, there's a short, dark interlude, followed by a bright piano solo, then Lloyd takes it back into the stratosphere.
The next two tunes are kind of similar. How Can I Tell You is a lovely yet lively ballad, and Lloyd dominates the proceedings for the first 2/3 of the tune before yielding only briefly to Bobo before coming back and taking it home. Desolation Sound has the same kind of arc, although the dynamic are more varied. It's much more slow and languid that How Can I Tell You, but when Bobo enters for his brief solo, he and Hart make it swing. Lloyd re-enters at that new level, as if he'd been digging what they were doing to the tune and wanted to join in the fun.
The title track is another long piece, and it develops very slowly. This is a tribute in itself to Lloyd, who has wonderful things to say and is very patient in developing his statements. Bobo take a nice solo in this piece.
On Nachiketa's Lament, Lloyd whips out a Tibetan oboe, and his soloing of the reedy instrument, especially in light of the title, takes on a keening quality. Hart adds some funeral drums, and Bobo takes a minimalistic solo, keeping with the somber feel. Lloyd goes well beyond the sonic novelty of the instrument, exploring its range and channeling its distinctive voice to great emotional effect.
The enigmatically titled M is a 13-minute treat that opens with a bass solo that sets a heavier tone than the preceding pieces. Hart focuses on his tom toms, while Bobo starts out light then rips into a spiky, energetic solo. Lloyd enters five minutes in and he hits the ground running with dazzling phrases and the occasional lower-register honk. About eight minutes in, however, Hart disrupts the proceedings with a nearly 2-1/2-minute drum solo that's rather repetitive and ends strangely softly. The group re-enters at the end with much lower intensity than before, and the tune eventually ends.
The album closes with Durga Durga, kind of a group rumbling. While Lloyd and Stenson play lovely counter-melodies on top, Jormin and Hart eschew a grounded rhythm and play a supportive but fairly free foundation on the bottom.
There is no good way to describe Charles Lloyd's playing except to say it's spiritual. His music is deeply felt and though she's a skinny, soft-spoken guy, he has reserves within that enable him to kick out very powerful and moving lines. When he plays softly, he is able to articulate perfectly, and his groups are amazingly adept at playing around his unique sound and style. As I said on another thread, while I've long loved Charles Lloyd, there are a lot of holes in my collection. After hearing Canto, I'm going to make it a priority to fill them.
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