Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
“At this point in my life I’m still looking for the note,” Charles Lloyd told DownBeat last year. “But I’m a little nearer.”
(Photo: Douglas Mason)What can we say about the shamanistic Charles Lloyd that this magazine hasn’t said during the past three years? After being voted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame and being honored as Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Group of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist of the year in this year’s DownBeat Critics Poll, the legend just keeps growing.
The readers agree, naming the brilliant composer and saxophonist Artist of the Year, Tenor Saxophonist of the Year and Flutist of the Year, while naming his latest recording, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note), Album of the Year.
Lloyd graced DB’s cover in August for those quadruple honors. And he graced the cover back in October 2022, when he was in the heat of producing and touring his brilliant Trio of Trios project that led to him being named DownBeat’s 2023 Artist of the Year and Tenor saxopnoist of the Year. More honors!
What’s been on his mind during these past three years? Here are four recent quotes from the magazine that give a hint.
“I was always thinking about pulling the bridge up, you know, and staying in meditation and living a simple life. I told Master [Billy] Higgins when he showed up at our place in Santa Barbara, before he left town [passed away] in 2001, I told him I had been fasting for a couple of weeks, thinking and meditating, and I said, no one cares about this music so I’m going to go back into the forest. He looked at me and said, ‘Fuck them. We care.’ Then we recorded Which Way Is East [ECM]. Master Higgins gave me such a strong rebuke that I renewed and reupped my dedication, because these masters who come before me, they bring this wisdom of integration of life. It’s not for me to decide when it’s time to pull up the bridge.” —AUGUST 2024
“Three years ago, just before COVID hit, I had this naïve notion that I could bring some tenderness into the world, and these great artists were the ones that I want to serve this mission with me — Jason [Moran], Larry [Grenadier] and Brian [Blade]. So we sent out the call and it came back affirmative, and it took a while to get us all together because of our schedules. And it was very beautiful and very magical … but this idea of tenderness to the world I’ve always been like that, you know.” —AUGUST 2024
“At this point in my life I’m still looking for the note. But I’m a little nearer.” —AUGUST 2023
“I go hiking in the mountains and hills around our property, then swim underwater and teach myself to breathe underwater. And then I go to the pianoforte and have these fragments and structures that come to me, and I try to figure out how they work. What I’m doing is these fractals. I want to see where they belong — who they’re singing to.” —OCTOBER 2022
DB
“It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”
Apr 29, 2025 11:53 AM
Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…
Foster was truly a drummer to the stars, including Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins and Joe Henderson.
Jun 3, 2025 11:25 AM
Al Foster, a drummer regarded for his fluency across the bebop, post-bop and funk/fusion lineages of jazz, died May 28…
“Branford’s playing has steadily improved,” says younger brother Wynton Marsalis. “He’s just gotten more and more serious.”
May 20, 2025 11:58 AM
Branford Marsalis was on the road again. Coffee cup in hand, the saxophonist — sporting a gray hoodie and a look of…
“What did I want more of when I was this age?” Sasha Berliner asks when she’s in her teaching mode.
May 13, 2025 12:39 PM
Part of the jazz vibraphone conversation since her late teens, Sasha Berliner has long come across as a fully formed…
Roscoe Mitchell will receive a Lifetime Achievement award at this year’s Vision Festival.
May 27, 2025 6:21 PM
Arts for Art has announced the full lineup for the 2025 Vision Festival, which will run June 2–7 at Roulette…