Charles Lloyd: 'Figure in Blue' (2025)

If you want to hear a jazz album that’s surely going to win a Grammy this year, put on Charles Lloyd’s Figure in Blue (Blue Note). Released in October, it’s as lush, sensual and heartfelt on individual tracks as it is absorbed as a concept package. I’d even go so far as to say it’s among the finest studio albums of Lloyd’s career, and that’s saying something. [Photo above of Charles Lloyd by D. Darr]

The 87-year-old reed and woodwind artist recorded his first studio album in 1960 with the Chico Hamilton Quintet (The Chico Hamilton Special). He would work extensively with Hamilton in the early 1960s. His first leadership album was Discovery!, recorded for Columbia in late 1963.

The latter LP is confident and lyrical, and showed Lloyd to have enormous promise as a composer and an evolving jazz force. You need only listen to Forest Flower, the opening track.

What’s more, Lloyd recorded that album on two separate dates with a slightly different slate of superb sidemen—Don Friedman (p), Eddie Khan (b) and Roy Haynes (d), and Don Friedman (p), Richard Davis (b) and J. C. Moses (d).

I’ve always found Lloyd more interesting than many of the 1950s saxophonists who were consumed by Coltrane’s domineering influence or foundered and lost their way trying to remain current in the 1960s and beyond.

Over the decades, Lloyd’s approach has been uniformly fresh, reminiscent of past greats but always ferociously contemporary on his own terms.

Which brings us to Figure in Blue. Recorded earlier this year, the album finds Lloyd on tenor saxophone, alto flute and tarogato (a Hungarian woodwind instrument, that resembles a soprano saxophone); Jason Moran on piano and shaker; and Marvin Sewell on guitar.

Yeah, isn’t that cool? No bass or drums. Moran plays with such expansive grace and covers the bass territory on the keyboard, and Sewell provides rhythm on his guitar. A perfect, spare backdrop for Lloyd to dig in. [Photo above, from left, Jason Moran, Charles Lloyd and Marvin Sewell by D. Darr]

Ten of the works on this double album are lovely originals while the remaining ones are by Duke Ellington (Heaven and Black Butterfly), Leonard Bernstein (Somewhere) and a Christian hymn arranged by Lloyd (Abide With Me).

Now here’s the hook. All of the pieces are deep ballads, with Lloyd including a rock original (Chulahoma), electric blues (Blues for Langston) and work of spiritual grace (Hymn to the Mother, for Zakir) for range and variety.

I had around seven listens to the album before putting fingers to keyboard, and I found that it’s best heard as a concept—from the first track to the last.

A terrific record by a jazz legend whose praises should be sung loud and clear today.

To buy, go here.

Here’s the title track. The rest of the album can be found in tracks here.

And here’s Song My Lady Sings…

Bonus: Forgot to check out Lloyd’s original, Forest Flower, from his first leadership session mentioned above? Here’s your second chance (don’t miss it)…