Charles Lloyd — Artist of the Year and More!

By Frank Alkyer I Nov. 7, 2024

“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