Jazz giants Charles Lloyd and Keith Jarrett release album gems

Latest albums from jazz giants Charles Lloyd and Keith Jarrett are too good to miss.

Jazz great Charles Lloyd has recorded three albums with different trios to celebrate his 80th birthday. Picture Albert Uriach (Supplied)

If you missed some recent key jazz releases from the German ECM and Blue Note labels there’s a wonderful triptych of albums celebrating the 80th birthday of the great saxophonist and flautist Charles Lloyd called Trio.

On each of them he plays with two other celebrated musicians from his enormous roll call of collaborators. Guitar guru Bill Frisell and bassist Thomas Morgan join him on Chapel; guitarist Anthony Wilson and pianist Gerald Clayton on Ocean, and guitarist Julian Lage and percussionist-vocalist Zakir Hussain on Sacred Thread.

Released by Blue Note, each album is different, the styles as diverse as the musicians Lloyd has picked, but at the centre of it all is the venerable composer-performer who comes from Memphis, Tennessee, and whose diverse ancestry – African, Cherokee, Mongolian and Irish – is reflected in his eclectic sound world.

His imagination, articulation and sheer joie de vivre remain undimmed almost 60 years after his first album, Discovery, was released when he was still a member of the Cannonball Adderley Sextet.

Jazz and classical pianist Keith Jarrett.

And high on my list of must-haves is the recent ECM album of Keith Jarrett’s solo concert, Bordeaux. Recorded in the French town in 2016, two years before a stroke ended his performing career, it is an eloquent testimony to the genius of a man, equally at home in the classical and jazz worlds, who could improvise a masterpiece as soon as he sat down at the keyboard. Thirteen wonderful musical miracles created in the moment – from a unique brain straight to his fingers.

The Lloyd albums are available from classicsdirect.com.au for $21.99 each. Bordeaux is available at JB Hi-Fi for $31.99. All are available from the usual download and streaming sites.

And Jarrett features on another ECM release, this time in classical mode, with a five-star recording of CPE Bach’s Wurttemburg Sonatas. “I’d heard the sonatas played by harpsichordists, and felt there was room for a piano version,” says Jarrett.

Album artwork for Keith Jarrett's recording of CPE Bach's Wurttemburg Sonatas on the ECM label.

The recordings were made at his Cavelight Studio in 1994, the double-disc set is a beautifully eloquent rendering of the younger Bach’s groundbreaking music which, while acknowledging the debt he owes to his father, goes in some surprising directions. Always fresh and inventive, often melodically unforgettable and with many a twist, this is art from a composer who went on to have a massive influence on the next generation, including Haydn and Mozart.

This wonderful disc has been on high rotation in my home since it arrived.

It is available from June 30 at classicsdirect.com.au for $29.95 or from the usual download and streaming platforms.

Finally Sting’s guitarist and collaborator Dominic Miller has a new jazz album out, Vagabond, on the ECM label.

Made during the pandemic when he was confined to his home in a French village he assembled a crack team in pianist Jacob Karlzon, bassist Nicolas Fiszman and drummer Ziv Ravitz. This is gentle, contemplative music full of memorable riffs and tunes and each tells its own story. Even though he has worked with some of the best singers in the world Miller is able to bring a lot of poetry to these eight instrumental tracks.

This is one not to be missed if you are looking for a gentle escape with a lot of charm.

It’s available at classicsdirect.com.au for $29.99