"Wild man dance", Charles Lloyd's new work, was commissioned by and premiered at Jazztopad Festival, a member of the Europe Jazz Network, in Wrocław in 2013. The recordings of that incredible concert will be released on the new album of the artist, the first one in 30 years for the renowned Blue Note label.
The six-movement suite Wild Man Dance was recorded during its world premiere at Wrocław’s Jazztopad Festival. The recording features, alongside Charles Lloyd, pianist Gerald Clayton, double bassist Joe Sanders, percussionist Gerald Cleaver, and virtuoso of the Greek lyre Sokratis Sinopulos as well as dulcimer virtuoso Lukács Miklós from Hungary. Lloyd’s compositions masterfully combine emotional extremes: elegance, grace, turbulence, dynamism, meditation, and peace. This music is a mysterious journey, beginning with Flying Over the Odra Valley, in which Lukács’s virtuosity and the leader’s energetic part on the tenor saxophone take centre stage, and the culmination is the moving, dynamic and epic final piece Wild Man Dance.
‘I represent the tradition of free yogis,’ says Lloyd at 72, thus explaining the message of Wild Man Dance: ‘I am a bluesman on my spiritual quest. Blues grew from seeking freedom. My way is seeking to liberate the soul (…) I continue to look for the right sound, this is my path, I call it “the way of a sound seeker”; the deeper I delve into the ocean of sounds, the more depths and ways of discovery I find.’
Wild Man Dance is the first Lloyd’s album released on Blue Note since A Night in Copenhagen produced in 1985, with the live recording of his Copenhagen Jazz Festival concert in 1983. The previous recording features pianist Michel Petricciani, who cajoled Lloyd into leaving his hut at Big Sur. ‘I left my spiritual retreat in 1981, to help Michel win the world scene, just as I had been helped by my old masters,’ says Lloyd. ‘When Michel’s career gained momentum, I could come back to my retreat at Big Sur.’ In 1989 Lloyd commenced his years-long cooperation with ECM Records, which resulted in releasing 16 albums. When in 2011 Don Was took over as CEO of Blue Note Records, Charles Lloyd decided on a change and started working with Blue Note again.
For more information please check: http://www.jazztopad.pl/en/news/jazztopad-festiwal-prezentuje-charles-lloyd-%E2%80%9Ewild-man-dance/
