Charles Lloyd - Sangam

This is a 2004 live recording that marked the launch of the unusual percussion-and-sax trio led by veteran American reed-player Lloyd that was a highlight of the 2005 London jazz festival. Lloyd's onrushing, multiphonic Coltrane-tenor sound, dolorous flute reveries and high-pitched odysseys on the Hungarian taragato clarinet are in constant conversation with virtuoso tabla-player Zakir Hussein and the phenomenal drummer Eric Harland.

Sangam might seem limited by no harmony instruments or melodic variety beyond Lloyd's horns, but Hussein's drums provide endless ringing, talkative melody as well as grooves, and Harland imparts breathtakingly wayward detail into his playing without ever losing the pulse. You have to like percussion, because the set is really a dialogue between Hussein and Harland over which Lloyd sketches ruminative embroidery. The leader can be a limited improviser, but his windy flute against a tapping repeated piano bass note and the flicker of Hussein's percussion, or the slow tenor lament over rumbling toms on Hymn to the Mother are very compelling. It's a set that rewards patience.

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Release date: 04.04.2006
ECM 1976

1.DANCING ON ONE FOOT

(Charles Lloyd)