Charles Lloyd Quartet was an American jazz ensemble led by saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd (born in Memphis, Tennessee, on 15 March 1938).
Lloyd left Cannonball Adderley in 1965. In 1966, he formed his "classic" quartet In New York with drummer Jack DeJohnette, pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Cecil McBee… Read moreShow less
Charles Lloyd Quartet was an American jazz ensemble led by saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd (born in Memphis, Tennessee, on 15 March 1938).
Lloyd left Cannonball Adderley in 1965. In 1966, he formed his "classic" quartet In New York with drummer Jack DeJohnette, pianist Keith Jarrett and bassist Cecil McBee (continued on by Ron McClure). Their first release together was a studio recording, Dream Weaver.
The Quartet's 1966 live album, Forest Flower, recorded at the Monterey Jazz Festival, was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s, building a heterogeneous audience of rock as well as jazz fans in the prospering hippie counterculture. The album was one of the first jazz recordings to sell more than a million copies.
The Quartet toured across America and Europe. The Quartet was the first jazz group to appear at the famed Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and other rock palaces and shared billing with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Cream, The Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane.
In 1967, Lloyd was voted "Jazz Artist of the Year" by DownBeat magazine. In 1967, Lloyd and the Quartet performed at the Tallinn Jazz Festival in Estonia, then part of the Soviet Union. On the same trip, they traveled to Leningrad and performed at two venues in Russia with the assistance of the Leningrad Jazz Club and the Moscow Jazz Club.
In 1968, after the quartet's demise, Lloyd entered a state of semi-retirement.