Listening to Now: Charles Lloyd Quartet - "Caroline, No"

By Richard K. Barry

Just got my current edition of Down Beat magazine (as an electronic download, if you must know). Charles Lloyd is on the cover. Lloyd is a much-travelled musician, primarily known for his saxophone and flute work. He's been around since the '50s as both sideman and band leader. You can find a discography at Discogs.

According to allmusic:

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd is a forward-thinking musician's musician whose supreme improvisational talents and interest in cross-pollinating jazz with rock as well as non-Western styles of music during the '60s and '70s established him as one of the key figures in the development of fusion and world music.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal had this to say:

We first heard Charles Lloyd in the early 1960s, performing with mainstream jazz musicians like Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley, as well as with experimentalists, including Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. Then, beginning in 1965, with a newly formed quartet featuring pianist Keith Jarrett, drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Cecil McBee, he stunned the jazz world with the first ever jazz recording to sell a million copies ("Forest Flower: Live at Monterey") along with appearances at rock palaces like San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, proving a crossover appeal rarely equaled. By 1967 he was Down Beat magazine's "Jazz Artist of the Year."

He's still at work, with a 2013 offering called Hagar's Song with Jason Moran.

The song in the clip is "Caroline, No," and was written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher for the Pet Sounds session. It was released as a solo Brian Wilson single in March 1966 in advance of the album's release, and then later appeared on the famous album (although Wilson was the only Beach Boy on the cut).

Lloyd covered it on his 2009 album Mirror. I am not sure when this video clip was recorded, or who makes up the quartet at this point. A very recent listing for the group includes pianist Jason Moran, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Greg Hutchinson.