Far From Linear

Elevating what is already gripping music history

A tidal surge pounds through an opening in a coastal rock formation, and then empties out. One can feel the Pacific Ocean's force near Big Sur, Calif., where saxophonist Charles Lloyd spent a long period of retreat from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, "getting off the bus," as he puts it, at the height of the popularity generated by his best-selling 1967 recording, "Forest Flower."

Charles Lloyd's story of personal awakening elevates what is already gripping music history.
Charles Lloyd's story of personal awakening elevates what is already gripping music history. Getty Images

That image—filling up, emptying out—returns again and again, like a mantra. Water abounds, literally and figuratively, in "Arrows Into Infinity," a documentary about Mr. Lloyd directed and produced by his wife, Dorothy Darr, and Jeffery Morse, and recently released in DVD and Blu-ray formats by Mr. Lloyd's longtime music label, ECM. (It was screened last weekend at the Monterey Jazz Festival, where, 48 years ago, Mr. Lloyd was recorded in concert for "Forest Flower.")

"Charles captured a certain element that was flowing, almost like a river cascades," pianist Herbie Hancock says in one of the film's interview scenes, about performing with Mr. Lloyd in the mid-1960s.

Mr. Lloyd's career—from early success through recent recognition as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master—fascinates for both its steady flow of achievement and for that one noteworthy ebb, when he withdrew to curb his drug use and devote himself to spiritual pursuits. Such emptiness, which Mr. Lloyd discusses here in stark black-and-white footage, grew into fullness, and a fresh wellspring of inspiration. That story of personal awakening elevates what is already gripping music history.

Ms. Darr said in an interview about the film that she aimed to provide "a fuller picture of who Charles is a human being and an artist, navigating his life and upholding his ideals."

This is no straight chronology. "It reflects Charles's speaking style, which is not really linear," Ms. Darr said.

Yet an early sequence grounds viewers in formative influences for Mr. Lloyd, who was born in 1938, in Memphis, Tenn.: his first mentor, pianist Phineas Newborn Jr. ("our J.S. Bach," Mr. Lloyd calls him); Duke Ellington and Count Basie, whose band members sometimes roomed at his family's large home; Charlie Parker, whose music inspired him to pick up a saxophone; later, bluesmen such as Howlin' Wolf (with whom he played "in schoolhouses, with corn liquor, gambling and gunshots in the distance"); and drummer Chico Hamilton and alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, in whose bands he emerged as a rising star.

The film's narrative is fluid and poetic, pausing just long enough for interviewees to express Mr. Lloyd's wide-ranging impact through the years. Robbie Robertson, a founding member of The Band, recalls Mr. Lloyd, in Adderley's band, as "this new guy who, just standing there, had this powerful presence." Jazz historian Phil Schaap marvels at his commercial appeal "at a time when Monk and Ellington were dropped by Columbia Records, and Birdland closed." Tabla player Zakir Hussain hears in Mr. Lloyd "a melodic richness and creativity made for Indian music." Jason Moran, the pianist in Mr. Lloyd's current quartet, recalls finding "Forest Flower" among his parents' LPs.

There is also the sort of rare and satisfying performance footage jazz fans crave, most notably of Mr. Lloyd's quartet (including pianist Keith Jarrett, drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Cecil McBee) at the 1966 Antibes Jazz Festival: French director Jean-Cristophe Averty's multiple camera angles and deft edits reveal this landmark group's drama and communion as no audio recording can. A liberating release of pent-up energy, for both musicians and audience, is evident in television footage from Mr. Lloyd's 1967 quartet tour of Tallinn, Leningrad and Moscow, which went on despite attempts by Soviet authorities to cancel it.

Here, as elsewhere, the film poses Mr. Lloyd's aesthetic as a challenge against complacency. It also lends weight to the idea of Mr. Lloyd's music as a spiritual offering. Footage of Mr. Lloyd being interviewed by Kiyoshi Koyama, editor of Japan's Swing Journal, includes this exchange:

"Where did this tender and unique sound come from?"

"I'd have to say Lester Young. I think the world could use more tenderness, you know. I can play strong, but I like something about the tenderness that 'Prez' had. It affected me."

Cut to Mr. Lloyd's forlorn version of a Mexican folk song, "La Llorona," from his 2010 CD, "Mirror." Later, jazz producer Michael Cuscuna likens that album to John Coltrane's "Crescent," for its quality as "music that's always searching, but is really at peace with itself."

The film peeks into Mr. Lloyd's private moments: sitting in tall grass in 1981 with pianist Michel Petrucciani, whose brilliance helped coax him out of seclusion; playing in duet with Mr. DeJohnette on a hillside, surrounded by only towering redwoods; shooting pool with his old friend Ornette Coleman. Riveting footage documents 2001 sessions at Mr. Lloyd's home for "Which Way Is East," a duet recording with drummer Billy Higgins, who died just four months later.

This film homes in on relationships, which have always formed jazz's spine: with Higgins, which began when Mr. Lloyd was in college; with trumpeter Booker Little, Mr. Lloyd's high-school best friend and mentor, who died tragically in 1961 at 23; and with musicians roughly half his age in a current quartet as compelling as his 1960s band.

There's also the love story that animates all this material—with Ms. Darr, whose artwork on CD packaging has long framed Mr. Lloyd's music, and who was his partner along the road back from seclusion. Here, she and Mr. Morse document an important strand of jazz history, and provide a sense of what it means to stand beside someone brilliant and imperfect for 40 years, aiming with strength and a light touch at something bold yet ineffable. As Mr. Lloyd puts it: "arrows into infinity."

Mr. Blumenfeld writes about jazz for the Journal. He also blogs at blogs.artinfo.com/blunotes.

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