First time on vinyl – three limited edition 180g LPs – for this historic live performance from the first headline act of the first Montreux festival bill. At the time, saxophonist Lloyd’s quartet was the hottest jazz act around, fresh from a recent landmark tour of the Soviet Union, and appearances at the Monterey Jazz Festival and Bill Graham’s Fillmore in San Francisco, making them the only jazz group to break through the flower power barrier. Lloyd was also DownBeat’s Jazz Artist of the Year for 1967.

The young band Charles Lloyd was leading was quite an outfit too, with Keith Jarrett on piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Ron McClure on double bass. Recorded by Radio Television Suisse at the festival’s venue of Montreux Casino, they sound absolutely at the top of their form, playing a repertoire of tunes taken from Lloyd’s albums, including ‘Love Ship’ from ‘Dream Weaver’, and epic versions of ‘Sweet Georgia Bright’ from ‘Discovery’ and ‘Forest Flower’ from the album of the same name, recorded live at Monterey. This being Lloyd there’s a fair bit of flute as well as tenor sax, too, with notable versions of ‘Lady Gabor’ and ‘Love Song to a Baby’, tunes that would later be released on ‘Charles Lloyd in the Soviet Union’ from performances in Tallin, Estonia.

The sense of occasion represented by the concert and its storied place in what was to become one of the greatest, longest-lasting and most forward looking of all jazz festivals can perhaps only be hinted at by an audio presentation, and there are elements of Lloyd’s showmanship that don’t really come across on record. In particular, the entire second LP is taken up with two sides of ‘Sweet Georgia Bright’, where Lloyd’s Ornette-ish free-jazz experiments – including a longish unaccompanied solo – don’t quite make their mark and seem closer to a novelty number than the New Thing.

The two sides of ‘Forest Flower’, however, which make up the third and final LP are unfailingly interesting on a number of levels. They also help to answer the question of who was leading who in the quartet’s personnel. On the one hand there’s evidence to suggest that with such a commanding rhythm section behind him, and all too ready to take up the slack when Lloyd wanted to lay back and take a break, it’s the rhythm team who are the driving force. And they are really wailing here, full of energy and fun.

Conversely, it’s largely because Lloyd is such a bravura leader whose solo features carry real musical and theatrical weight, that his young band get the present of a free pass to go where they wish, as it were. There’s some ordinary Jarrett pianism here as well as the oft-touted genius, but perhaps like all live albums to some extent, you probably really need to have been there, front and centre, to recapture the full effect. But when Jarrett takes over from a fabulous talking in-tongues style circular breathing showcase by Lloyd on ‘Forest Flower’s foundational latin vamp, for instance, you can’t help thinking that his improviser’s invention has got stuck in the chords of ‘La Bamba’ or ‘Hang on Sloopy’. Although maybe that’s a quibble: DeJohnette is drumming up a storm, Jarrett is hammering away like a man possessed and even at a distance of 57 years you can feel the excitement building, and imagine the sweat running down the players’ necks.

When all the constituent parts are working together – and DeJohnette sounds absolutely immense throughout, with McClure the perfect steady straight-man foil – you have to shake your head in wonder and, sometimes, in disbelief. What a band. What a moment. What joy.

from https://ukjazznews.com