Monday 03 Nov 2014
Harry Guerin: As a child in the South, did you feel music was your calling from the first time you picked up an instrument?
Charles Lloyd: I first heard the saxophone in a parade when I was three-years-old and a light went off. I said, 'That is what I want to do'. I had to wait until I was nine to actually get a saxophone and start playing. My mother had a hard time taking it away from me - I even tried to play it in the bathtub.
Charles Lloyd: I first heard the saxophone in a parade when I was three-years-old and a light went off. I said, 'That is what I want to do'. I had to wait until I was nine to actually get a saxophone and start playing. My mother had a hard time taking it away from me - I even tried to play it in the bathtub.
What memories from your early years playing are you drawn back to again and again?
There are many volumes of memories. Transformative ones start from my early days with Chico [Hamilton, drummer and bandleader] and Cannonball [Adderley, alto saxophonist and bandleader] - I came through San Francisco a lot performing at the Jazz Workshop and the El Matador. After the 1966 [Charles Lloyd] quartet concert in Monterey, we had a gig for a week at the El Matador. There was a theatrical group The Committee - very outside, zany guys like [John] Belushi and Second City in Chicago - they had their own theatre up the street on Broadway. They would stop in each night after their performance had closed. One of the members, Morgan Upton, came to me and said, 'We're not jazz buffs but we sure like coming to hear you guys play every night'.
He suggested that I should be playing at the Fillmore where there were lots of young people. I asked him who played there and he said, 'Muddy Waters'. I said, 'McKinley Morganfield, I know him'. He introduced me to [promoter] Bill Graham who invited me to his emporium. Word began to spread about us in non traditional jazz quarters and rock groups wanted to be on bills with us because they loved the freedom we had with improvised music.
There was a disc jockey, Tom Donohue, who used to play our music a lot on FM radio. Barriers were coming down and you could hear our music along with Ravi Shankar, The Grateful Dead, Paul Butterfield, Quicksilver Messenger [Service], Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Cream, Howlin' Wolf…
There are many volumes of memories. Transformative ones start from my early days with Chico [Hamilton, drummer and bandleader] and Cannonball [Adderley, alto saxophonist and bandleader] - I came through San Francisco a lot performing at the Jazz Workshop and the El Matador. After the 1966 [Charles Lloyd] quartet concert in Monterey, we had a gig for a week at the El Matador. There was a theatrical group The Committee - very outside, zany guys like [John] Belushi and Second City in Chicago - they had their own theatre up the street on Broadway. They would stop in each night after their performance had closed. One of the members, Morgan Upton, came to me and said, 'We're not jazz buffs but we sure like coming to hear you guys play every night'.
He suggested that I should be playing at the Fillmore where there were lots of young people. I asked him who played there and he said, 'Muddy Waters'. I said, 'McKinley Morganfield, I know him'. He introduced me to [promoter] Bill Graham who invited me to his emporium. Word began to spread about us in non traditional jazz quarters and rock groups wanted to be on bills with us because they loved the freedom we had with improvised music.
There was a disc jockey, Tom Donohue, who used to play our music a lot on FM radio. Barriers were coming down and you could hear our music along with Ravi Shankar, The Grateful Dead, Paul Butterfield, Quicksilver Messenger [Service], Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Cream, Howlin' Wolf…
Santana told me that he used to go hear me at the Fillmore as a teenager and sit in the front row and shout 'Free the people Charles, free the people!'. This was a time when people's attitudes began to change and the music was becoming more open - the social scene was becoming freer and we were seeking to realise very high ideals.
read more: http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2014/1103/656563-interview-jazz-saxophonist-charles-lloyd/
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