“The Water is Wide" is the first of two Charles Lloyd albums culled from an exceptionally productive session in Los Angeles. By turns tender, joyful, reflective, it brings together authoritative players who span the generations; each is a unique musician and distinctive stylist, yet all share a reverence for the depth of the jazz tradition. After the highly successful "Voice In The Night" album, the most-widely praised of all his ECM recordings, the great saxophonist from Memphis, Tennessee, follows up with an imaginatively programmed album that takes his music to the next level. Like "Voice In The Night", "The Water Is Wide" is again an all-American jazz album in the classic mode, but it brings together old masters and young lions. Three quarters of the "Voice" band (Lloyd, Abercrombie. Higgins) meets two-thirds of the skyrocketing Brad Mehldau trio (Mehldau, Grenadier). What emerges is timeless music imbued with youthful zest.
Recorded December 1999.