August 29, 2025
On Oct. 10, jazz legend Charles Lloyd will release his latest musical offering, Figure In Blue, a spacious double album of new studio recordings featuring the great saxophonist in the company of a new trio with pianist Jason Moran and guitarist Marvin Sewell. Lloyd’s 12th Blue Note album travels wide expanses of musical terrain from raw Delta blues to beautiful ballads such as the gorgeous new single “Hina Hanta, the way of peace” out today.
The piece invokes the spirit of the Choctaw, an American Indian tribe of the Southeastern U.S., calling upon the strength and resilience that Lloyd has found in his own Choctaw ancestry. “My great-grandmother, Sallie Sunflower Whitecloud, refused to walk the Trail of Tears and became enslaved so that she could stay at my great-grandfather’s side,” he explains. “She was a wise woman who knew many things about the natural world. She has shown me a path that is in a fragile balance and must be respected. I have her songs in my heart.”
Throughout a program of new original music, reinvigorated older works, and other choice selections, Lloyd pays tribute to the musicians and influences that have shaped him on Figure In Blue. The result is one of the most musically stunning and personally meaningful recordings of his career. In it, you can hear a kind of memoir unfold at the same time the saxophonist puts forth a candid document of his undiminished strength. As he nears his tenth decade, his tone and technique are, as ever, equally mighty and ethereal, delivering startling intensity even in moments of meditative quiet.
Lloyd has done career-defining work in unconventional trio lineups, including Sangam with Zakir Hussain and the more recent recordings collected in the trilogy Trio of Trios. But Figure In Blue stands alone, breaking new ground in the way of harmony, patience, and generosity. The trio is a study in ensemble empathy — a clinic in knowing when to play and when to listen — owing to both experience and shared Southern roots.
