Jazz great Charles Lloyd to perform at Soka Performing Arts
- Anita W. Harris
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
If you’ve ever heard Charles Lloyd on saxophone, you know there’s no one else in the world who can make it sing, speak, dance or just tickle like he does.
Though Lloyd has performed with different trios and quartets over decades, sometimes on flute or other wind instrument and in different musical genres, his distinctive style always comes through — playful, soulful, surprising, delightful and spiritually transporting.
For one night only at the Soka Performing Arts Center on Saturday, Dec. 13, Lloyd will perform on tenor sax with fellow Sky Trio members Larry Grenadier on bass and Kweku Sumbry on percussion for an evening that promises to deliver all of the above and more.
At 87 years young, Lloyd has played with an astonishing array of musicians, spanning jazz, country and world music and drawing on Native and Eastern spiritual traditions and musical influences from countries such as Hungary, Turkey, Greece and India.
But Lloyd also has California roots, having moved from his hometown of Memphis, Tenn. in 1956 to earn a music degree from the University of Southern California — playing with Los Angeles jazz musicians at night and forming his own group with Billy Higgins and Don Cherry, among others — and now a long-time resident of Big Sur.
His musical journey after college led to a quartet in 1965 with pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Cecil McBee, and drummer Jack DeJohnette — widely described as a union of “straight-ahead post-bop, Free jazz, rock and world music” — that achieved crossover success with rock fans, with its 1967 album “Forest Flower: Charles Lloyd at Monterey” selling more than a million copies.
Lloyd has continued touring and recording since then, with a range of albums including “Fish Out of Water” (1990); “Notes from Big Sur” (1992); “Canto” (1997); “Voice In The Night” (1999); “The Water Is Wide” (2000) with John Abercrombie, Grenadier, Higgins, and Brad Mehldau; and “Sangam” (2006) with Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain and drummer Eric Harland.
In the 2000s, Lloyd formed his New Quartet with virtuoso pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers and Harland on drums. He also recorded “Wild Man Dance Suite” featuring piano, bass, drums, Hungarian cimbalom and Greek lyra in 2015, and formed the country- and blues-inflected ensemble the Marvels, featuring recordings with singers Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson and Norah Jones.
And he created a commissioned multimedia project in 2017 called “Red Waters, Black Sky” for the Marvels, also featuring a string quartet and choir with a video backdrop composed by his wife Dorothy Darr, that paid homage to Indigenous peoples who’ve had their homelands taken and in particular his great-grandmother Sallie Sunflower Whitecloud, who purportedly refused to walk the Trail of Tears.
The recipient of numerous awards, Lloyd was named NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) Jazz Master in 2015, honored with France’s Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) in 2019, and in 2024 won DownBeat magazine’s “quadruple crown” of artist of the year, album of the year (for “The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow,” with Moran, Grenadier and Brian Blade), tenor saxophonist of the year, and induction into its hall of fame.
Lloyd’s most recent album is “Figure in Blue” (2025), featuring Moran and Marvin Sewell.
Fellow musicians Grenadier and Sumbry are fitting companions for Lloyd on the Soka stage. Bassist Grenadier, who’s been recording and performing for over three decades with such musicians as pianist Brad Mehldau and guitarist Pat Metheny, as well as his own trio Fly and with his wife singer-songwriter Rebecca Martin.
Grenadier has said he’s “hyper-aware” of the balance between technical musicianship and instinctual music, especially in jazz.
“Music is about intuition and emotion,” he says. “Compassion, strength, flexibility and stamina are all important qualities in playing music, but the most important thing is the ability to listen.”
And percussionist Sumbry—a core member of the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet—is also a sound healer immersed in the West African tradition of the djembe hand drum, where members often play in circles and communicate through rhythm rather than written music.
A healing, soulful, tuneful and no doubt playful evening is in store for Southlanders come Dec. 13 — perfect for the holiday season.
“Charles Lloyd Sky Trio Featuring Larry Grenadier & Kweku Sumbry” will perform Saturday, Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. at the Soka Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr., Aliso Viejo. Tickets range from $40 to $80, inclusive of fees, and parking is free. For tickets and information, call the box office at 949-480-4278 or visit Soka.edu.
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