Kit Clayton: Nek Sanalet

Charles Lloyd has long been a free spirit, master musician, and visionary. For more than 6 decades the legendary saxophonist and composer has loomed large over the music world, and at 84 years old he remains at the height of his powers and as prolific as ever. As a sound seeker, Lloyd’s restless creativity has perhaps found no greater manifestation than on his latest masterwork Trio of Trios, an expansive project that encompasses three albums, each a deft change of musical context that presents him in a different trio setting.

Saxophonist WAYNE ESCOFFERY reflects on love, loss, and solitude on his stunning new album, the atmospheric and haunting, ALONE, featuring a remarkable all-star quartet with Gerald Clayton, Ron Carter & Carl Allen.

Performed across two nights at the Royal Dramaten Theatre in Stockholm in March of 2017, Who By Fire is a theatrical staging of Leonard Cohen’s songs, poems and letters. Conceived and anchored by First Aid Kit, the band are joined by an array of guest artists, two actors, an 8 member band and strings and on two songs a 20 strong choir. An incredibly ambitious undertaking, they selected and sequenced all of the material performed and collaborated with the theatre and their music director to stage and orchestrate the show.

This “short diary (of loss)”, as drummer Sebastian Rochford calls it, is offered as “a sonic memory, created with love, out of need for comfort.” It is dedicated to Rochford’s father, Aberdeen poet Gerard Rochford, 1932-2019, and to his family. Seb, one of ten siblings, wrote most of the music shortly after Gerard’s death and delivers it here, in performances of deep feeling and hymn-like clarity, together with pianist Kit Downes. The final wistful piece, “Even Now I Think Of Her” was composed by Gerard Rochford. Sebastian explains: “It’s a tune my dad had sung into his phone and sent me. I forwarded this to Kit. He listened, and then we started.”