Charles Lloyd

Truly, this trio – featuring Charles Lloyd on saxes and flute, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, and drummer Eric Harland – is an absolute revelation. The title of their album “Sangam, translates as “union” or “confluence” and is apt in describing not just the breath-taking interplay and common purpose among the three musicians in Charles Lloyd’s trio, but also the deep spiritual love that sweeps off the stage and into the audience, taking up everyone in the excitement of the moment: inclusive, playful, joyous” (Pop Matters).

As the listener will quickly gather, Sangam is an exciting, celebratory group. Charles Lloyd is inclined to give the credit to all the good will Higgins is beaming down from Devachan, but the positive energy radiating from the interplay of Hussain’s hand drums and Harland’s jazz traps should not be underestimated. Zakir and Eric’s frequently breathtaking exchanges –a rush of purring, jewel precision beats –  energize Lloyd’s own playing.  “When the spirit is blowing, I know I have to hoist my sails high to catch the wind,” Lloyd says, a typically gnomic remark that hints both at the character of his uniquely buoyant, floating sound and the way in which he leads this group (as many Lloyd bands before it), by encouraging the music to emerge naturally – carrying him, and all participants, with it. 

Sax-soloist-and-accompanists is not the model in the Sangam group; mutual inspiration elevates the band, as ideas are hurled, often gleefully, between the three musicians. Lloyd: “Nobody takes the solo spotlight, we’re all helping each other. In the moment, one of us will trigger something and somebody’s got it and gone with it. Next thing you know, we’re opening this whole other ballet together, with these little waterfalls and things coming down… It’s hard to talk about without the language to describe the creative reservoir.”    

Sangam,  a word of multiple definition, signifies confluence, a meeting place, a gathering or coming-together, literally or metaphorically. Triveni sangam, which was nearly this album’s title,  means a three-way junction or meeting of three rivers, which merge and flow as one. Flow – free and unimpeded flow – is of central importance to the members of the group. Zakir Hussain enthuses about the freedom he has found inside it.