Photo by Howard A Gitelson

Charles Lloyd grew up in Memphis, moving to Los Angeles in 1956 to study at USC. There he was influenced by Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry, and Ornette Coleman, and first encountered Billy Higgins. In New York, Lloyd was a sideman with the Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley bands, and played with Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus. His legendary status in the 1960s world music movement culminated in his historic appearance at the 1966 Monterey Jazz Festival with then-undiscovered piano whiz Keith Jarrett and a young drummer named Jack Dejohnnette. The resulting live recording, Forest Flower, became one of the first jazz records to sell a million copies, a big hit with an audience more attuned to rock than jazz. After touring in the wake of his success, Lloyd retreated from public performance for much of the 70s and 80s. “I thought that my music could change the world. When I found out that I was wrong, I embarked upon a long journey of trying to change my character and transform myself." Lloyd’s retreat included meditation in Malibu and studying Eastern religious thought in Big Sur.

Lloyd made a brief return to recording and touring in the early 1980s as mentor to French piano prodigy Michel Petrucciani; once the young star launched his solo career, Lloyd again returned to the solitude of Big Sur. Recovering from a nearly fatal intestinal disorder in the late 1980s, Lloyd was reinvested in his jazz career, and returned to performing and recording, releasing his first ECM album, Fish Out of Water (1990). He then hooked up with old friend Billy Higgins to record Acoustic Masters in 1993; his series of stellar collaborations with Higgins for ECM soon followed. Wrote Stereophile,

Eric Harland has been smoking with a long list of highly respected jazz musicians—from Betty Carter, McCoy Tyner, and Joe Henderson to Greg Osby, Jason Moran, and Kenny Garrett. A native of Houston, Texas, Harland was “discovered” at a high school workshop by Wynton Marsalis, who encouraged him to study in New York City. Starting with a full scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music, Harland’s career has been on a meteoric trajectory ever since. In addition to his numerous performance and recording credits, he has also collaborated with Terence Blanchard on a number of film scores. These days he regularly tours with McCoy Tyner, Charles Lloyd, Jacky Terrasson, and Joshua Redman's acoustic trio, and is a member of the prestigious San Francisco Jazz Collective Group. Described by Ben Ratliffe in the New York Times as an “agile and graceful drummer," John Kelman (Jazz Review.com) notes that “he propels every tune… is incendiary, driving every soloist.”

Photo by Howard A Gitelson

"Lloyd's sound, pure and dark, is rich with bright overtones of connotation, an elevated form of human utterance as song.”

Said Lloyd in an interview for Down Beat (April 1994), "I am blessed that for whatever reason I got the saxophone, because it is an extension of myself. It somehow makes me whole when I can hold on to it. Sometimes when I'm playing, I really don't have to hold on. It's like levitation is happening ... It's weightless ... It's effortless ... It's so unto itself."