Comments and corrections to Alan Saul

Charles Lloyd performed in concert at the California Institute of Technology some time around 1971 or 72, and apparently rapped at some length with the students. He developed a friendship with David R. Smith, an English professor at Caltech and the "Master of Student Houses" who had a budget to spend on undergraduate students and was in the process of building a house in Malibu Colony, where Lloyd lived. Robert Flake recalls that this started as a chance encounter between Charles and David in Larry Hagman's pool, and that Charles visited Caltech in 1971 for "a rather spectacular gathering in Dabney Hall ... that disintegrated into various shouting matches and posturing, mostly by the 'adults'." Smith invited Charles and Charles' film-expert friend Eric Sherman to come back on a regular basis, and a series of Wednesday evening sessions resulted. These weekly seminars took place between 1971 and 1974, although I don't recall the chronology very well. They consisted of Charles talking, most typically about Arnold Ehret's Mucusless Health Healing System or Transcendental Meditation (TM), but often about music, and then playing recordings, followed by Eric Sherman's introduction then screening of a film.

Usually 5-15 of us attended. For me (as well as for Robert Flake and perhaps a few others), it was the highlight of my time at Caltech. I enjoyed my southern California life, spending most of my time in the mountains, the desert, the Grand Canyon, and the like, and only making a point of being on campus during the middle of the week so that I could check out Charles and Eric. When one of the older students (Ray Spears or Rene Gandolfi?) who had been there before I arrived first told me about Charles, I had a vague, mistaken notion of who he was, thinking he was a pianist for one thing. My jazz knowledge was extremely spotty, consisting in large part of the ESP and related material (Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, ...) I had been thrilled by during my high school years. I thus learned a lot from Charles.

Charles started, if I recall correctly, with Bird. I had heard of Charlie Parker, of course, but had somehow managed not to really listen carefully. For instance, I knew Eddie Jefferson's version of Bird's solo on Lady Be Good, Disappointed, and could probably sing most of it, but I had only listened to the original improvisation a few times. I was, on the other hand, familiar with Eric Dolphy, and loved his work on Charles Mingus' Candid recording (Mingus Presents Mingus) for one. So when Charles made me really listen to Bird for the first time, I was astounded that this guy played so PERFECTLY. Because I associated that kind of perfection with Dolphy and Mingus, I asked Lloyd if Parker had ever played with Mingus. I got a glare in response and the correction that the question was whether Mingus ever played with Bird. For several weeks Charles played various recordings of Parker's and talked about how much they meant to him, and how his biggest regret was never having heard Bird live. Bird was his musical ideal (although I believe he agreed that Art Tatum was God).

The next artist covered was Billie Holiday, although she may have actually come before Bird. Lady had a lot of meaning for Charles: he said once that she helped him survive his college years, I think in particular through listening to her Lady in Satin record. His love of the blues, and interest in verbal communication joining with music, came through in his discussion of this music.

Eventually Charles got around to Trane. He was enormously excited about this character, who I had neglected at that point almost as much as I had Bird. I was familiar with John Coltrane largely through his interactions with Eric Dolphy. At that time, this long-term collaboration was documented principally by the original Live at the Village Vanguard record. So one night I brought that record in hoping he would play it and we could talk more about Eric. I figured that he would play Spiritual, very much a wonderful and germane piece. Instead, to my initial disappointment, he excitedly put on Chasin' the Trane, on which Dolphy does not play. He lowered the lights in the little room in Baxter Hall, THE Humanities building on campus, and created as good a mood for listening to this masterpiece as could be imagined under the circumstances. Since I knew this music somewhat, I enjoyed the experience and my disappointment that he wasn't playing Dolphy lessened a bit. At the end, as Trane wound up and Elvin closed the proceedings and Eric played the one note caught here, Charles got up and put the stylus back to the beginning. He played the whole thing again, grooving to the transcendence of the music. This process was repeated 6 times I think. We got immersed in some of the most powerful expressions ever recorded, and I was changed by the experience.

Although I had a hard time getting Charles to address issues in which I was interested, he continued to impress his ideas on me. Despite my resistance to his notions of meditation and diet, I eventually changed the way I eat and adopted some of his versions of Dr. Ehret's scheme. This involved being fruitarian, not eating anything but nuts and fruit and vegetables that didn't have to be picked. I couldn't afford to have enough fresh fruits and nuts around even if I wanted to be strict, but I did stop eating most dairy and meat products. I also stopped using drugs, perhaps partly because of Charles' influence, though mostly because I found the scene on campus sociologically fascinating but spiritually unrewarding (I also had very long hair and enjoyed not fulfilling the expectations of people who picked me up hitchhiking and the like and wanted to light up). On the whole, I found Charles' lifestyle ideas not to my taste, however. He discussed Nicola Tesla and other Scientology ideas, presumably hoping to glean some scientific feedback at this technical institution. There were lengthy talks about Transcendental Meditation, in which he was becoming a teacher at that time. Sometimes he would be out of town on Wednesdays and Eric would bring a cassette Charles had made to play to us, consisting of lectures on TM and the like. These trips away from music were annoying to me, but I was starting to discover the joys in the films Eric Sherman showed (Frank Borzage, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, Kenji Mizoguchi, John Ford, Orson Welles, ...) and looked forward to them as well.

I did push Charles at every opportunity to talk about music, and there were a few successes. One evening I brought up Booker Little, one of my other loves. To my surprise Charles immediately said that Booker was the greatest trumpet player who ever lived. He related that he stayed with Booker when he first got to New York, and owed a lot to him. I eventually realized that they grew up together in Memphis and were close friends. Much later, Charles told me that he taught Booker to play the blues when they were 13 years old.

Nor did I realize that he was close to Eric Dolphy, even though I knew that Charles had followed Dolphy in the Chico Hamilton Quintet. Charles tended to put down my interest in Dolphy, saying once that Dolphy had a corny sense of rhythm, although he commented favorably on Eric in comparison to Bud Shank, who somebody else was raving about. He related that Dolphy had deeply hurt Little by terminating their engagement at the Five Spot in order to "chase after Trane".

One evening during this sort of discussion Charles asked if we knew who his 3 favorite saxophone players were. It seemed completely obvious to me based on all his words about them that these 3 were Bird, Sonny Rollins, and John Coltrane, and he seemed glad that I'd been paying attention. He told some great stories about Sonny, how he and his young colleagues used to go hear Sonny and they'd watch him eating a big porterhouse steak before playing, so they'd go imitate their hero, with Charles providing an impression of Sonny's deep voice. Years later Charles realized that the meat didn't help his playing, but instead clogged his system up with mucus and reduced his lung capacity. Sonny had by then realized the same thing, and had become a vegetarian himself, according to Charles. Somehow most of the musical themes tended to lead to his other obsessions in those days. But through it all it was always clear that music was his highest priority.

These are sometimes regarded as his lost years, since he didn't record as much, but this never made sense to me since it was when I had contact with him. He had just recorded the Waves album for A&M when these visits started, and he played some of the tapes from these sessions. The track TM from this album had been laid down by his band, then various friends from Malibu like the Beach Boys came by and overdubbed vocals. The word spread and other enthusiasts came by and added more vocals, including a woman who he hadn't known who provided the lead part in the end. He was relishing his groovy lifestyle with beautiful people and lots of money. One night, however, he brought along his aunt who I think was visiting from Memphis, and his roots were clear, very tied to his upbringing in the church and the blues. They also came through in his playing. He performed several concerts that I caught in the 70s, and made good on his claim that he always strove to give all his energy in performance. His band then included Transcending Sonship in Rhythm, Sound, and Color (aka Woody Theus) on percussion, Blackbird on guitar, and Roberto Miranda on bass. They were wonderful musicians all of whom put out enormous energy. The Geeta album provided a good reflection of their sound, and includes several of Charles' many fine compositions and some excellent playing. Despite spending a lot of time on diet, TM, Esalen, and many other pursuits, Charles devoted himself to his music in its time, and it didn't suffer.

Eventually this series of seminars came to an end as Charles and Eric found less time for it and David Smith found less money for it. For the last session Charles invited us to bring instruments and play. Bill Hocker, who had graduated but had become a friend of Charles (and later of mine) played guitar, and perhaps somebody else played a bit. I had brought my clarinet but was not brave or stupid enough to play it myself, and instead asked Charles if he would play it for me. He said he hadn't played clarinet for a long time but had had to play it in college, and proceeded to blow some magic into it for a half-hour. A beautiful musician and fascinating man.

31 March 2013