Charles Lloyd Sky Quartet

When you're the one everyone still wants to play with and learn from, no matter what level of brilliance they've long since reached themselves, then a dream line-up is simply a logical consequence. And the line-up for this Encore event is just that: a dream. Three outstanding protagonists of the middle jazz generation meet the now 87-year-old Charles Lloyd, who has released no fewer than ten new albums in recent years: with Bill Frisell, Zakir Hussain and Lucinda Williams. And none of them breathe the stale spirit of nostalgia. Lloyd, who has been moving between blues, avant-garde, hard bop and rock as a saxophonist, flautist and composer since the 1950s, has one of the richest vocabularies of any jazz musician. The magnificent current quartet offers him a foundation on which he can fuse the most sublime melody lines, the most subtle changes, the most spiritual experiences and the most complex emotions with his warm, old-masterly tone. The current album "The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow", released on Blue Note in 2024, is a happy message in dark times. And, almost needless to say, the "album of the year" according to DownBeat.