Charles Lloyd was only 29 years old when TIME magazine noted one of his most distinguishing and enduring traits. It was 1967, and Lloyd had just led the first jazz group ever to perform at San Francisco’s counter-cultural hotspot, the Fillmore. “Though modern jazz normally goes over with teens like a 9pm curfew,” TIME wrote, “Lloyd’s passionate attack holds them spellbound.” Lloyd—now celebrating his 80^th birthday with us in Rose Theater—is an NEA Jazz Master, saxophone titan, bandleader, and composer with a rare crossover appeal. To this day, he performs his soulful music with a fervor and emotional abandon that connects with a diverse community of listeners.

After establishing his jazz bona fides in the early 1960s as a key member of Chico Hamilton and Cannonball Adderley’s groups, Lloyd formed his historic quartet with Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJohnette, bringing improvised jazz to brand-new audiences and recording one of the first jazz albums to sell a million copies. A veritable rock star, Lloyd then shared bills and recording dates with the Grateful Dead, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, and the Beach Boys, and he now leads some of jazz’s most distinctive and celebrated small groups. His current band, The Marvels, is the perfect vehicle for his stylistically varied and spiritually engaging music, and Jazzwise called their 2016 debut album “perhaps the finest of Lloyd’s career.”

Featuring Lloyd’s longtime rhythm section of bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland, plus pedal steel guitar master Greg Leisz and singular six-stringer Bill Frisell, The Marvels play new originals, Lloyd classics, and transformative versions of American roots music, gospel, rock and pop hits, Mexican folk songs, and much more. Joining them tonight is iconic vocalist and songwriter Lucinda Williams, who has performed live with The Marvels on a few special occasions and recently recorded an acclaimed version of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” with the band. Catch them together in Rose Theater for an experience that has been bringing music lovers together for half a century.

Free pre-concert discussion nightly at 7pm.