Just Before Sunrise: Dream Weaver & Love in
Until this CD, the only in-print evidence of saxophonist-flutist Charles Lloyd's remarkably successful string of late-'60s albums has beenForest Flower, the 1966 live recording from the Monterey Jazz Festival. But that has thankfully changed with the release by 32 Jazz ofJust Before Sunrise, which bundles together two long out-of-print albums from that period,Dream Weaverfrom 1966 andLove Infrom 1967. Featuring pianistKeith Jarrettand drummerJack DeJohnette, with bassists Cecil McBee onDream Weaverand Ron McClure onLove In, the two albums give a fuller picture of what was undoubtedly one of jazz's most remarkable ensembles. Lloyd's playing was so impassioned and direct it isn't hard to see why many critics at the time pegged him as the nextColtrane. His beautiful flute work onDream Weaver's "Autumn Sequence" (which adds intro and outro passages to the classic "Autumn Leaves") is one of the best examples of jazz flute available, and his tenor playing on the disc's two-part title track and the uptempo ode toCharlie Parker, "Bird Flight," is searing. But it was the quartet's explosive group interaction (largely due to the incredible DeJohnette) that became its trademark.Dream Weaverin particular is a case study in sensitive group improvisation, with the Quartet's hard-bop leanings balanced by an expansive freedom more akin toMiles Davis's quintet of the same period and to the classic John Coltrane Quartet.Love In(recorded live at the Fillmore) shows more evidence of the group's crossover status, with a lifeless version of theBeatles' "Here, There and Everywhere" sounding like a token gesture. But both albums are remarkable in that they were embraced by a pop audience and yet, decades later, still sound so raw and uncompromising.--Ezra Gale