Beyond Space and Time: A Conversation with Charles Lloyd

It becomes far too easy to focus on the here and now. It is easy to overlook how the fleeting moments we live in are but a drop in the grand ocean of history. But true visionaries find ways to be of their time without being confined by it. Consider Leonardo da Vinci, who was shaped by the courts and workshops of the Italian Renaissance yet filled notebooks with fanciful machines whose significance would not be fully known for centuries. Or one could point to the painter Hilma af Klint, whose work reflected the spiritualist and Symbolist trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries but took the form of large-scale abstract paintings unlike anything else ever seen before. Charles Lloyd belongs in this company. His most recent album Sangam & Friends (Blue Note, 2026) only further enriches the thesis.

Yet Lloyd has never been afraid of the times in which we live. In the late 60s, he was part of the burgeoning blues-rock scene, working with the band Canned Heat. The 1970s found him playing on several Beach Boys albums. He even recorded with Jim Morrison and his band, The Doors. And turning to Lloyd’s own releases, perhaps his best-known is Forest Flower: Charles Lloyd at Monterey (Atlantic, 1967), which captivated the counterculturalists of the era.  And yet, there is a recurring timelessness to Lloyd’s music. There is always a sense that the essence of what you are hearing – while relevant to today – would have borne just as much import in the past. And likely will remain essential long into the future.

As a result, even at eighty-eight, Lloyd exudes a coolness envied by many even half his age. Want proof? This summer’s Newport Jazz Festival featured a conversation between the saxophonist and the Festival’s Artistic Director Nate Smith. Due to traffic issues and a small window for conversation, Lloyd had very limited time for a chat. Smith, who could have asked so many different things, was stuck seeking only the essentials. And one he could not avoid was asking the NEA Jazz Master, “How are you this cool?” Coming from an artist whose own work embodies the contemporary permeability of jazz, the inquiry speaks volumes.

However, that also raises a far more interesting question: how can Lloyd remain both tied to our time yet untethered by it? Perhaps the answer comes organically from Lloyd’s focus on nature. It is no mere coincidence that Lloyd’s album titles have evoked plants [Forest Flower, The Flowering (Atlantic, 1971), Vanished Gardens (Blue Note, 2018)], water [Waves (A&M, 1972), Fish Out of Water (ECM, 1990), The Water is Wide (ECM, 2000), Jumping the Creek (ECM, 2005), Trio: Ocean (Blue Note, 2022)], and the sky [Rabo de Nube (ECM, 2008), The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note, 2024)]. These titles reflect how Lloyd’s musical ideas accumulate as he walks or hikes through nature. But they also speak to a larger humanity. Put aside the differences that divide people and cultures, and you find a shared human relationship with nature. One that evokes a diverse range of emotions from wonder and awe to fear and worry.

Sangam has always been a project particularly designed to minimize human separation. Its roots extend back to a period of heightened tension and fear of terrorists targeting common people. The first musical meeting of Lloyd and the late tabla maestro Zakir Hussain took place at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral in October 2001, a time when credible threats were made to target the fairly nearby Golden Gate Bridge. The stark contrast between the chaos of the outside world and the transcendental tranquility within a sanctuary could not have been clearer. But, again, Lloyd’s work is about more than the here and now, and nature is the cross-temporal connection. The word “sangam” itself represents a confluence of rivers. Ostensibly about the meeting of the Yamuna River and the Ganges River in Hindu tradition, the title also reflects the Rio Grande and the Mississippi. In so doing, Sangam brings together the blues of his Memphis upbringing, the raw emotions of a piece like “La Llorona,” which have long been a part of Lloyd’s vocabulary, and Hindustani classical music. Each tributary brings its own rich lineage and tradition.

But Sangam is not solely some fusionistic crossing in which the sediments of one stream are mixed with those of another and the remainder washed ashore. As anyone familiar with the captivating Sangam (ECM, 2006) – a version of the group that further draws the generational lines by adding drummer Eric Harland –  knows, the group forms an entity unto itself. It wholly honors the histories that made it but uses them as grounds for unlimited expansion and potential rather than restrictive narratives. The trio would play together around the world over the next two decades, bringing even more influences into its malleable form.

Perhaps the greatest of these evolutions came when the trio went to Mumbai in 2009 and joined several musicians there – Carnatic singer Vijay Prakash, bansurist Rakesh Chaurasia, sarangist Sabir Khan, keyboardist Ranjit Barot, and sitarist Niladri Kumar. It is easy to mislabel Sangam & Friends (Blue Note, 2026) as the Sangam concept going deeper into Hindustani music than ever before. The instrumentation certainly suggests such a conclusion. But something more is happening with this record. The two masters at its center have long had feet in both hemispheres. Lloyd’s Geeta (A&M, 1973) shows his interest in Hindustani music goes back over half a century, while Hussain had long felt as comfortable with electronic music (Tabla Beat Science) and the jam of Mickey Hart as with the heritage of his homeland. As a result, Sangam & Friends is more than just a deeper dive into the group’s Eastern origins. It is a further swim into the shared humanity behind all of music. Lloyd’s mournful yet grateful cries on  “The Blessing” stand before the ensemble’s mesmerizing landscape behind him. Sun rises, sun sets, the joys and sorrows of life all flash before the listener’s eyes as they listen intently. “Jai Ganga” is a wild dance that warmly celebrates the deeper truths behind the artists’ work.

It would not be inaccurate to call the record one of Lloyd’s finest in a career full of incredible records; but that is also not the point. Some statements transcend accolades or fleeting triumphs. Sangam & Friends is not solely a document of Lloyd and Hussain voyaging to India. It is an open invitation for the listener to join them in their travels to somewhere else, to somewhere beyond.

We corresponded with Lloyd over email to explore Sangam & Friends, the relationship he forged with Hussain, and the enduring legacy of Forest Flower at sixty.

PostGenre: You’ve spoken previously of a deep spiritual and musical continuity between your work with Billy Higgins and Zakir Hussain, and of sensing Higgins guiding you toward Zakir. Now that Zakir has also moved to the next phase, do you feel any similar sense of guidance or presence from him in the music you’re making now?

Charles Lloyd: Well, it is all a continuum. Higgins and I had a deep spiritual connection and when I first heard Zakir with Shakti, we were being drawn together by a connection that had started thirty years earlier through Ashish and Pranesh Khan who were on my album Geeta. Not long after we met, he told me that when Ashish and Pranesh told him about being on Geeta, he said, “That should have been me.”

Some connections in life are predestined. It felt like that with Zakir – from afar, he remains a presence in my life.

PG: You’ve described yourself as a musical servant or messenger of a higher power rather than the originator of the music. Do you think the deepest challenge for an artist is ultimately learning to get out of the way; to become clear enough to hear and follow what they are being called to do?

CL: What I have said is that “I am in service” and that the music comes through me. I’ve been drunk with the music and have always wanted to make a contribution. For the music to flow the ego must get out of the way. That is always the challenge. I’m an ecstatic and the music gets me there.

PG: Your first performance with Zakir was at the Grace Cathedral in October 2001, with terrorist threats in the air. Midway through the performance, Zakir said that “Music is about building bridges, not destroying them.” As someone who has spent their life in music, what is it about art that particularly bridges the gaps between people in ways words alone often cannot?

CL: It’s in the fourth dimension, beyond space and time — it is in the now. Music is also transporting and can take you to most unexpected places of memory and emotion. It’s a direct arrow to the heart.

 

PG: In a 2004 interview about Sangam, Zakir said that the trio is “language spoken between three people.” How do you feel that language evolved most over the life of the group?

CL: The more you get to know someone on and off the stage, the more streamlined and profound the communication becomes. I was blessed to have known Zakir for twenty-five years. Looking back – it went by in the blink of an eye. Life is like that.

PG: Most of the recordings that make up Sangam & Friends were captured in 2009. Why were they unreleased for seventeen years, and how, if at all, do you feel that passage of time most changes your own appreciation of the recordings?

CL: It was put on the back burner for a long time. I would listen to it from time to time — Sangam Trio had many concerts over the years that followed and I had other projects that were taking my attention full time. We always intended to return to complete it. That didn’t happen, so we added a few tracks of just the Sangam trio.

 

PG: Sangam & Friends goes even deeper into Hindustani classical influences than the original trio, by including Carnatic vocals, bansuri, sarangi, and sitar. How do you feel, if at all, your love of Béla Bartók and studies with Halsey Stevens have shaped how you interact with cultural traditions outside your own direct lineage?

CL: I don’t feel lines of demarcation — I just feel the flow. When you are with seekers of sympatico the connection is always deep.

 

PG: Adding additional artists on Sangam & Friends expands the group’s musical vocabulary. Did you think of these musicians as entering an already-established musical language, or did their presence fundamentally change what Sangam could be?

 CL: I knew the experience of India and joining up with other Indian musicians would be profound. Zakir was tuned in to that as well. He thoughtfully, set up intentional encounters with the individuals who joined us in the studio. These great musicians had a desire to make music with me and we had a beautiful communion without a lot of words. We moved forward together through sound.

 

PG: Both Hindustani classical music and “jazz” place significant emphasis on improvisation. Do you feel improvisation plays a central role in cross-cultural artistic communication in a way that is perhaps lost with more fully formalized compositional structure?

 CL: An open mind and respect are elemental. If one has mastered the basics of their instrument and composition — the exchange of ideas has greater freedom and elasticity. We have been listening to each other for a long time, so there is familiarity with the sonic language and rhythms.

 

PG: Changing focus a little, on September 27th, you will perform at Monterey with your quartet in a set celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Forest Flower. Given that you have long written music with specific artists in mind and the quartet is a different group than the original one, do you still see a connection back to the original quartet, or are the quartets markedly different given their different memberships?

CL: I wrote Forest Flower when I was with Chico Hamilton. It’s on Man From Two Worlds (Impulse!, 1964) — there is a section of beautiful interplay between Gabor Szabo and myself — but it is the version recorded 60 years ago at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Keith, Cecil, and Jack that everyone came to know. Timing and lighting. When it was released on At Monterey, our country was changing culturally and politically. It struck a chord and took off.

The world is in a different place now. As I said, I like to be in the now, when we perform Forest Flower next week in Monterey, it will be created through a completely different set of nervous systems and sensibilities.

 

PG: As a forward-looking artist, what do you feel six decades of life brings out most in the Forest Flower compositions compared to when you first performed them – something that wasn’t there in 1966 or that you approach differently now?

 CL: Experience. I have a long life behind me now and an unknown number of years ahead of me.

PG: Circling back to Zakir, so much of communal artistic expression depends on the underlying relationships of colleagues shaping each other’s approaches and students and teachers teaching each other. Looking back, what did your relationship with Zakir teach you about your own music that you might not have discovered on your own?

CL: Zakir was with us for too short of a time. As an exponent of the great tradition he grew up in, one of his roles was to carry on the legacy of his father, Alla Rakha. He also expanded his boundaries to incorporate other traditions into his own music while remaining firmly anchored in traditions of India. The role of “guru” in India is a revered one. Teacher. Zakir was a great teacher to the students he took on in formal settings, and as well, to those of us who made music with him. He did so with a sparkling wit, humor, and deep humility. I am still learning from him.

 

‘Sangam & Friends’ is out now on Blue Note Records. It can be purchased directly from the label. You can learn more about Charles Lloyd on his website. You can also learn more about his upcoming quartet performance at the 2026 Monterey Jazz Festival from the Festival’s website.

 

Photo credit: T. Jordan Hill, PostGenre Media; Charles Lloyd at the 2026 Newport Jazz Festival