Happy Birthday Charles Lloyd – The Dream Weaver Keeps on Weavin' that Sweet Dream

Ya dug him before - dig him now! “Lord Lloyd” is still Badass after all these years!!!

(photo by Claire Daly)

I’ve told this story over and over again, about how my sister Jayne had this cool “beatnik” boyfriend Steve Brick, who came over our house toting a stack of jazz albums – from Mose Allison, to MJQ and Herbie Mann to set the mood for their make-out sessions.

Me and Brick 1968 - (When he walked in the door, back from his first semester at Bard College - I didn’t know at first if he was John Lennon or George Harrison - the White Album had just come out! So my father grabbed my mom’s hairpiece and his old GI glasses and plopped ‘em on my head and snapped this outta focus pic. Today - March 15 is not only Sir Lloyd’s birthday, but also the yahrzeit of Brick’s passing into the next realm - om ah hum!)

Brick would also turn me on to Allen Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Ishi and the mandolin as well. I heard a lot of cool music coming from Jayne’s room. Herbie Mann’s albums My Kinda Groove and Live at the Village Gate were very cool, and probably inspired me to play flute in the first place. I also dug the exotic Eastern Sounds by Yusef Lateef and then I heard Roland Kirk’s “Serenade to a Cuckoo” from his I Talk with the Spirits album and that was it! (If you thought I’d write a piece on Rahsaan, well, I already wrote a whole book on him called Bright Moments – The Life & Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk – check it out on Amazombie). I had to get a flute despite my brother and father both calling it a “girl’s” or “fairy’s” instrument. So, my mom took me to the local music store and we rented a flute under the condition that I learned to read music and would play some classical pieces. Okay… deal and we found a teacher, who played in the NY Philharmonic – the white-haired Mr. Quinlan, who sat, rapping a baton against the music stand whenever he caught me playing from memory and not from paper – which was about half the time. I don’t remember if I first heard Charles’ flute extrapolation on “Autumn Leaves” called “The Autumn Sequence” coming from Jayne’s room or at Brick’s house, but it was a milestone for me! As was the album’s last track – the badass groovin’ calypso of “Sombrero Sam.” The next week I brought the record to Mr. Quinlan’s house and announced, “This is what I want to sound like!” He put on the record and raised his white bushy eyebrows and glared at me. “No! You definitely do not! Not if I can help it!” he said. And that was the end of my formal musical education.

Charles with the late/great Claire Daly (photo by JK)

I have to point out that this all took place before the flute became the flavor of the moment with Brit rock bands Jethro Tull, Traffic and King Crimson’s gorgeous “I Talk to the Wind.” As for the rest of the album – as Small Faces used to sing, “It’s All Too Beautiful.” (If ya don’t know Lloyd’s classic band – it featured a young unknown pianist named Keith Jarrett with bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jack DeJohnnette. Thank you Charles, for a lifetime of transcendent music! You always bring it!

Ya dug it before - now dig it again! “Sombrero Sam” is still Badass after all these years!!! Charles Lloyd on that breezy flute, with a young/unknown Keith Jarrett rockin' the 88's and Jack DeJohnette bringin' the beat! with Cecil McBee on da bass -