Charles Lloyd returns with new album The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow on Blue Note

Saxophone legend Charles Lloyd will be returning in the spring (15 March – also the jazz titan’s 86th birthday) with the release of his latest musical offering, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow, a double album of new studio recordings. On this new album Lloyd will be joined by a newly assembled quartet: pianist Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Brian Blade.

The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow is Lloyd’s eleventh Blue Note album and his first new studio recording since the 2017 sessions that yielded his acclaimed releases Vanished Gardens and Tone Poem— and contains  first-time recordings of six new Lloyd compositions including the title track, ‘The Water Is Rising’, ‘Late Bloom’, ‘The Ghost of Lady Day’, ‘Sky Valley, Spirit of the Forest’, and ‘When the Sun Comes Up, Darkness Is Gone’.

The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow is available for pre-order now on ‘Blue Note Store exclusive’ colour vinyl, and will be available via record shops and streaming platforms on black vinyl, CD, and digital download. 

The album’s lead single 'Defiant, Tender Warrior' is available to listen to now.

Born in in 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee, Lloyd was apprenticed with jazz and blues legends including Phineas Newborn, Howlin’ Wolf, and BB King. While attending the University of Southern California in the late 1950s, Lloyd performed with prominent artists on the Los Angeles jazz scene including Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Don Cherry, Scott LaFaro, and Gerald Wilson. In 1960, Lloyd became the music director in the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and later joined the Cannonball Adderley Sextet for a two-year stint before leaving to focus on his own career as a leader.

He signed with Columbia and released his debut album Discovery! in 1964. In 1965 he formed his first great Quartet with a young pianist named Keith Jarrett along with Cecil McBee and Jack DeJohnette. The Quartet’s first album Dream Weaver for Atlantic was followed by Forest Flower: Live at Monterey in 1967, a wildly successful album that became one of the first million-sellers in jazz and catapulted Lloyd to international fame.

The Quartet went on to perform at rock festivals and venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco where they co-headlined bills with rock artists; at the peak of his popularity he decided to leave the music world and disappeared to a Big Sur retreat for most of the 1970s. He stopped touring and would play saxophone for the trees and occasionally collaborate with poets and authors such Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ken Kesey.

Lloyd re-emerged briefly in the early 1980s to help the French pianist Michel Petrucciani begin his career, releasing a single album for Blue Note featuring Petrucciani (A Night In Copenhagen) before disappearing again until 1989 when he began a fruitful 25-year relationship with ECM Records. Lloyd’s 16 albums for ECM re-established the saxophonist as one of the leading creative voices in jazz, and found him collaborating with artists including Bobo Stenson, John Abercrombie, Billy Higgins, Brad Mehldau and Geri Allen.

Lloyd returned to Blue Note in 2015 releasing a run of acclaimed recordings: Wild Man Dance (2015); I Long to See You (2016); Passin’ Thru (2017; Vanished Gardens (2018); 8: Kindred Spirits (2020), a celebration of Lloyd’s 80^th birthday captured live at The Lobero Theatre with Julian Lage, Clayton, Rogers, and Harland plus special guests Booker T. Jones and Don Was; Tone Poem(2021); and Trio of Trios (2022), an expansive project which encompassed three albums each presenting Lloyd in a different trio setting.

See the March issue of Jazzwise for an in-depth Charles Lloyd – issue on sale 15 February - subscribe here to order your copy now