Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note)

The legendary saxophonist Charles Lloyd pulled together a quartet for the ages for his new two disc set The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow. Joined by pianist Jason Moran, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Brian Blade, Lloyd has three musicians beside him who have fully bought into his probing, spiritual vision. There are more than a few Lloyd compositions or arrangements that are making encore appearances here: “The Water is Rising,” “Cape to Cairo,” and ‘Balm in Gilead,” just to name three. The album begins and ends with roughly the same muted, mallet driven groove from Blade with “Defiant, Tender Warrior” and “Defiant Reprise; Homeward Dove.” In between those two points, though, are many different shades of Charles Lloyd. There’s the very subtle and nuanced way that he breaks from form on “The Lonely One.” The ersatz tribute of “Monk’s Dance,” (where Jason Moran channels Monk without sounding like him in the slightest. That was a neat trick) or the curious tribute to Booker Little, “Booker’s Garden,” which gets surprisingly funky. That same kind of vibe is present on the disc two opener “Beyond Darkness.” “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” gets surprisingly heavy for a song with a sub-three minute running time. “Cape to Cairo” might take some time to fully unfurl, but truly, that’s a situation of the journey being way more fun than the destination. What I love about The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow is that there’s seemingly a Charles Lloyd for every situation. Excursions into the unknown on Another Place? Sure. A meditation for a moment’s peace during the morning show? Yeah, we’ve got a couple of those. Long beautiful grooves that are undeniable? Charles brought a few of those, too. I sincerely hope that he’s got a couple more like this in the tank, because this is a beautiful way to spend three, nine or ninety minutes.

Wolff, Clark & Dorsey – A Letter to Bill Evans (Jazz Avenue 1)

Leon Lee Dorsey and Mike Clark have made for a formidable bass/drum tandem for quite some time, and their frequent collaborator at the piano, Michael Wolff, has joined them for a wonderful trio album called A Letter to Bill Evans. As you might imagine, all nine of the selections here were played often by Evans, and seven of them can be directly tied to the Evans trio with Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian. Wolff, Dorsey and Clark are all excellent players, and it’s nice to hear these songs played without the goal of trying to sound like The Bill Evans Trio. Instead, we get some driving fire on “My Romance” and “You and the Night and the Music.” A trio can’t capture the Freddie Hubbard/Jim Hall front line on the original version of “Interplay,” and that’s ok, because this version drips with blues, and the way these three push the groove as a unit takes on a charm all its own. A Letter to Bill Evans is a beautiful concept: three masters from one generation celebrate three masters from a past generation.

Lori Bell Quartet – Recorda Me: A Tribute to Joe Henderson (self-produced)

While flautist Lori Bell is an in-demand professor at San Diego State University in California, who has released a steady stream of albums over the course of the past 40+ years, she had managed to evade my radar until now, and for that, my friends, I am ashamed. Bell is stunning at her craft, and she assembled a great band to run through eight of Joe Henderson’s classics, and one of her own compositions, too. Recorda Me: A Tribute to Joe Henderson also features pianist Josh Nelson, bassist David Robaire and drummer Dan Schnelle, and Bell not only plays the flute, but she also arranged all nine of the songs here. To my ears, the best moments on the album are the songs where she decided to take the songs in slightly different directions (“Inner Urge,” “Serenity”), and the call and response interplay between Nelson and Bell on “Isotope” deserves its own callout, because it is a lot of fun.