Charles Lloyd Quintet to Perform at Blue Note (2003)

On January 16, 2003, eJazzNews carried a press release announcing a six-night run by the Charles Lloyd Quintet at the Blue Note in New York, January 28 to February 2, 2003, with pianist Geri Allen, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Eric Harland. The shows followed Lloyd’s ECM double album Lift Every Voice. Lloyd, born in 1938, had a new album out on Blue Note in July 2026; Allen and Abercrombie both died in 2017.

What the 2003 announcement said

The release presented the engagement as Lloyd’s return to the Blue Note with a new quintet, and as a live presentation of Lift Every Voice. It listed two sets a night, at 8:00 and 10:30 p.m., with tickets at $25 at a table (plus a $5 food or drink minimum) and $15 at the bar. The rest was a career summary, from Forest Flower in 1966 to his ECM albums.

Two details need correcting. The release said Lloyd joined Chico Hamilton’s group in 1961; the National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Note Records both date that move to 1960, when he became the band’s music director. It also called Forest Flower jazz’s first million-seller. The NEA’s wording is more careful: one of the first jazz recordings to sell a million copies.

The album behind the dates

Lift Every Voice (ECM 1832/33) was recorded in January and February 2002 at Ocean Way and Cello Studios in Los Angeles and released on October 22, 2002. ECM describes the double album, which mixes Lloyd originals with spirituals, hymns, folk songs and protest songs such as “What’s Going On,” as partly Lloyd’s response to the September 11 attacks: he had been due to open at the Blue Note on September 11, 2001. It was Geri Allen’s first ECM recording. On the album Allen and Abercrombie played with bassists Marc Johnson and Larry Grenadier and drummer Billy Hart; the Blue Note rhythm section was Hurst and Harland.

Charles Lloyd’s path to 2003

Lloyd was born in Memphis on March 15, 1938. As a teenager he was mentored by pianist Phineas Newborn Jr., played with saxophonist George Coleman and worked as a sideman for B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland. He moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to study at the University of Southern California. After Hamilton’s band he spent time with Cannonball Adderley from 1964, then led a quartet with pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Jack DeJohnette. Its 1966 set at the Monterey Jazz Festival, released by Atlantic as Forest Flower, won him a rock audience as well as a jazz one. In 1969 he broke up the quartet and withdrew to Big Sur, resurfaced in the early 1980s alongside pianist Michel Petrucciani, and began recording for ECM in 1989.

What happened next

Eric Harland became one of Lloyd’s closest collaborators. He played in Sangam, Lloyd’s trio with tabla player Zakir Hussain, and in the New Quartet with pianist Jason Moran and bassist Reuben Rogers. By Blue Note’s count Lloyd made 16 albums for ECM before moving to Blue Note Records, which released Wild Man Dance in 2015, the year he was named an NEA Jazz Master. His 12th Blue Note album, Figure in Blue, a trio session with Moran and guitarist Marvin Sewell, came out on October 10, 2025. On July 24, 2026 the label released Sangam & Friends, an album built on sessions Lloyd, Hussain and Harland recorded in Mumbai in February 2009.

Two members of the 2003 quintet have since died. Geri Allen died on June 27, 2017, at 60. John Abercrombie died on August 22, 2017, at 72; ECM had released his last album, Up and Coming, earlier that year. See also our guides to jazz saxophone players and jazz clubs in New York.

Where to start listening

• Forest Flower (Atlantic, 1967): the Monterey recording with Jarrett, McBee and DeJohnette that made Lloyd’s name.
• Lift Every Voice (ECM, 2002): the double album the 2003 Blue Note run was built around, with Geri Allen and John Abercrombie.
• Figure in Blue (Blue Note, 2025): a late-career trio with Jason Moran and Marvin Sewell.

Sources

• ECM Records, “Lift Every Voice,” album page, ECM 1832/33.
• National Endowment for the Arts, “Charles Lloyd,” NEA Jazz Masters biography.
• Blue Note Records, “Charles Lloyd,” artist biography.
• Blue Note Records, “Charles Lloyd Announces New Trio Album Figure in Blue,” August 13, 2025.
• Blue Note Records, “Charles Lloyd Pays Homage to Zakir Hussain with Sangam & Friends,” June 10, 2026.
• Discogs, “Charles Lloyd, Zakir Hussain, Eric Harland: Sangam & Friends,” Blue Note, 2026.
• NPR, “Geri Allen, Pianist, Composer and Educator, Dies at 60,” June 27, 2017.
• NPR, “John Abercrombie, Wry and Exploratory Jazz Guitarist, Dies at 72,” August 23, 2017.
• Wikipedia, “Charles Lloyd (jazz musician).”

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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