Charles Lloyd plays by his own rules — whether it’s blowing on sax with bluesman Howlin’ Wolf in Memphis while in high school or attending USC in the late ’50s by day while jamming with L.A. jazz greats by night or blasting off to rock star fame in the ’60s with the likes of the Grateful Dead, Cream, and Janis Joplin.
Lloyd continued his own journey when he suddenly disappeared from the music scene in the late ’60s — at the height of his popular success — to watch hawks soar over Big Sur and to nurture his spirit. When Lloyd … slowly … emerged from Big Sur in the mid-’70s, it was to move to Santa Barbara: first by living part-time at Beach Boy Mike Love’s Montecito beach house and then moving permanently to the hills of Montecito in the ’80s.
Since then, from what he describes as his “laboratory and ashram” close by the Vedanta Temple where he worships, Lloyd expanded his vision. For the last 30 years, he has performed around the world on tenor saxophone, flute, and Hungarian tárogató and made 17 records of extraordinary range, including his Wild Man Dance suite, released last week on Blue Note Records to enthusiastic international reviews. On Monday, April 20, Lloyd was inducted as a 2015 Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, the “highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists,” according to the NEA.