Search - Charles Lloyd :: Just Before Sunrise: Dream Weaver & Love in

Until this CD, the only in-print evidence of saxophonist-flutist Charles Lloyd's remarkably successful string of late-'60s albums has been Forest Flower, the 1966 live recording from the Monterey Jazz Festival. But that has thankfully changed with the release by 32 Jazz of Just Before Sunrise, which bundles together two long out-of-print albums from that period, Dream Weaver from 1966 and Love In from 1967. Featuring pianist Keith Jarrett and drummer Jack DeJohnette, with bassists Cecil McBee on Dream Weaver and Ron McClure on Love In, the two albums give a fuller picture of what was undoubtedly one of jazz's most remarkable ensembles. Lloyd's playing was so impassioned and direct it isn't hard to see why many critics at the time pegged him as the next Coltrane. His beautiful flute work on Dream Weaver's "Autumn Sequence" (which adds intro and outro passages to the classic "Autumn Leaves") is one of the best examples of jazz flute available, and his tenor playing on the disc's two-part title track and the uptempo ode to Charlie Parker, "Bird Flight," is searing. But it was the quartet's explosive group interaction (largely due to the incredible DeJohnette) that became its trademark. Dream Weaver in particular is a case study in sensitive group improvisation, with the Quartet's hard-bop leanings balanced by an expansive freedom more akin to Miles Davis's quintet of the same period and to the classic John Coltrane Quartet. Love In (recorded live at the Fillmore) shows more evidence of the group's crossover status, with a lifeless version of the Beatles' "Here, There and Everywhere" sounding like a token gesture. But both albums are remarkable in that they were embraced by a pop audience and yet, decades later, still sound so raw and uncompromising. --Ezra Gale