In November 2019, Charles Lloyd made his highly acclaimed debut at the Pierre Boulez Saal. He was supposed to return for two concerts in December 2020 that had to be canceled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Commissioned by the Pierre Boulez Saal, Lloyd’s wife, painter and video artist Dorothy Darr, set about creating a film portrait of the musician, documenting the time spent in isolation at the couple’s home in Santa Barbara, California. The project was initiated by Piotr Turkiewicz, who has closely worked with both Charles Lloyd and Dorothy Darr over the years and who is the Pierre Boulez Saal’s curator for improvised music and jazz. Shot over the course of several months using iPhone and Lumix cameras as well as a portable Zoom recorder, the film provides rare and intimate insights into the artistry of Charles Lloyd—including his reflections on solitude, resistance, social injustice, and his own ancestry, as well as a number of solo performances.
| Supported by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media of the Federal Republic of Germany. |
Explore the music of Charles Lloyd in our specially curated playlist, above featuring a selection of tracks hand-picked by the artist and his wife, Dorothy Darr.
Check back soon to see the film on our new Digital Streaming Platform.
Charles Lloyd was born in 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee. He was given his first saxophone at the age of nine, his first teachers were pianist Phineas Newborn and saxophonist Irvin Reason. As a teenager, he played with George Coleman and blues greats like Johnny Ace, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Howlin’ Wolf, and B. B. King. He moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to study music with Halsey Stevens at the University of Southern California. At night, he performed at the city’s jazz clubs with artists such as Ornette Coleman, Billy Higgins, Scott LaFaro, Charlie Haden, and Bobby Hutcherson. In 1960 he became music director of Chico Hamilton’s group, writing the music for some of his most revered albums. Following a brief engagement in the Cannonball Adderley Sextet, Charles Lloyd founded his own quartet in 1965 together with Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Cecil McBee. The ensemble released numerous acclaimed albums and toured the whole world. At the height of his career in 1970, Lloyd disbanded the quartet and retreated from the jazz scene. During this time he performed in the Beach Boys' touring band and contributed to several of their studio recordings. He returned to the public stage in 1981, introducing the French pianist Michel Petrucciani on several world tours. In 1988 he formed a quartet with Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson. Since then, Charles Lloyd has been working with various artists in a broad variety of musical formations, among them a duo with Billy Higgins, the New Quartet with Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers, and Eric Harland, and the group Charles Lloyd & The Marvels with Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz. Charles Lloyd received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music and was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2019.
Dorothy Darr is a painter and visual artist whose work has been exhibited and is part of private collections around the world. At the age of five, she spent time in Mexico, which greatly influenced her color palette, and visiting Le Corbusier’s Chappelle de Notre Dame du Haut as a teenager had a significant impact on her appreciation of architecture and the use of light and space, while music has influenced her throughout her life. She has won numerous awards and had her work published in journals in the U.S., Japan, France, and Germany. With her husband, Charles Lloyd, she has co-produced his last 16 recordings and designed the cover art for all his ECM and Blue Note albums. She has made five documentaries relating to Lloyd’s life and work, including Memphis Is in Egypt (1996), Home (2004), Ben Ingram vs. the State of Mississippi (2009), Charles Lloyd: Arrows into Infinity (2013), and Love Longing Loss: At Home with Charles Lloyd During a Year of the Plague (2021).
