Recording of the Week, Charles Lloyd, 'Trios: Chapel'

Left to right: Thomas Morgan, Bill Frisell & Charles Lloyd (Photo by Dorothy Darr)

A few years into his ninth decade of life, saxophonist Charles Lloyd has never sounded more himself; with over sixty years playing under his belt now, Lloyd boasts almost fifty studio recordings, and that’s just counting ones where he’s the bandleader. The saxophonist has been on something of a winning streak lately between each of his different projects; following up his much-celebrated 2019 album 8: Kindred Spirits with his quartet and the equally stellar Tone Poem with his more guitar-centric ensemble The Marvels last year, Lloyd’s latest offering is a trio of trio records with each album featuring a different lineup, releasing between June and October. The first of these albums is today’s Recording of the Week, Chapel, featuring the indomitable duo of guitarist Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan.

Despite the many group compositions Lloyd has played in over the years, he sees to have a certain affinity for these trios; this particular Chapel recording was actually made back in December of 2018, and documents the first time they ever played live together – a set that has “always had a special place in my memory bank” according to Lloyd. Meanwhile the Ocean trio was formed for a post-lockdown concert at the tail-end of 2020, and the Sacred Thread trio, too, played together for the first time in September of that same year. All of these trio records feature artists with whom Lloyd has at least some collaborative history with; while Frisell is a staple of the Marvels group, both guitarist Julian Lage (who appears on Trios: Sacred Thread) and pianist Gerald Clayton (on Trios: Ocean) can be heard on the aforementioned Kindred Spirits, while Lloyd’s history with tabla player Zakir Hussain (also on Sacred Thread) goes as far back as the 2004 trio record Sagnam.

Left to right: Bill Frisell, Charles Lloyd & Thomas Morgan

That being said, if you’ve heard Frisell and Morgan’s recent collaborations on ECM like 2017’s Small Town and 2019’s Epistrophy, you’ll know that these two are practically telepathic in their performances together; out of all the trios Lloyd has recorded with for this series, I can’t think of a better pair of musicians with which to share the bandstand. Their guitar and bass converse like old friends in the introduction to the Lloyd original ‘Song My Lady Sings’ – where Lloyd’s humble entrance doesn’t appear until around the four-minute mark, answering Frisell and Morgan with some more roundabout playing before settling back into the melody with the pair at the tune’s conclusion.

Much like on Tone Poem, you’ll hear Lloyd playing both saxophone and flute (in this case its slightly larger alto cousin), with its lower tones granting the original ‘Beyond Darkness’ a certain eerie quality as Frisell and Lloyd play off each other with dancing lines like flickering lights in the dark. Meanwhile, the trio’s interpretation of Ignacio Jacinto Villa Fernández’s ‘Ay Amor’, a ‘60s Cuban cabaret song, makes for a nice slow-burning tune that Frisell and Morgan are more than suited for, Frisell’s contribution giving their version that certain old-time country guitar flavour he’s known for. Meanwhile the tender ‘Dorotea’s Studio’ pays tribute to Lloyd’s wife – filmmaker and visual artist Dorothy Darr who also designed the cover art for this trio of trios – with Frisell mirroring Lloyd’s guiding saxophone throughout.

Lloyd, Frisell and Morgan navigate the less-often explored sound of the sax-guitar-drums trio with fluency befitting of their combined experience playing music; even Thomas, the youngest of the three, has been in the game long enough to have plenty to add. Frisell and Morgan’s duo work was already exemplary, and adding Lloyd’s voice into the equation brings only fruitful results, breathing new life into the formula. I’ll be keen to hear these next two trio albums, both of which will no doubt have their own unique chemistry to unpack.