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Charles Lloyd - Which Way Is East (2004)
	Album details
	Label:     Ref#:   Date: 2004   Category: jazz Rating: 70     Genre: Jazz
Notes/Reviews
Sadness mixes with spiritual uplift on Which Way is East, an epic series of duets recorded by saxophonist Charles Lloyd and drummer Billy Higgins in Lloyd's home a few months before Higgins's death in 2001. The Californians were dear friends going back to their teens. Here, in eight connected suites performed on a full array of instruments, they filter their feelings for each other, their music, and their world through their religious outlooks--Lloyd is a Buddhist, Higgins was a devoted Muslim. The pieces range from spirited free jazz with Lloyd on tenor and Higgins at the traps to New Age reflections featuring Lloyd on taragato and Tibetan oboe and Higgins on hand drums and wood box. Higgins also dabbles with guitar and a Syrian "one-string," showing off a rarely heard facet of his talent. Clocking in at more than two and a half hours, the double CD is no short walk in the transcendental woods, but the varied instrumental settings keep things livelier than some of Lloyd's slowly paced band recordings. And on alto, Lloyd has fun trading in his debt to John Coltrane to emulate one of Higgins's many other legendary employers, Ornette Coleman. --Lloyd Sachs
Songs/Tracks
CD1: 1.   What Is Man - The Forest  3:34 2.   What Is Man - Being And Becoming  4:45 3.   What Is Man - Civilization  4:35 4.   What Is Man - Sea Of Tranquility  2:43 5.   Divans - Prayer, Sanctuary  4:12 6.   Divans - Supreme Love Dance  3:36 7.   Divans - A Wild And Holy Band  3:53 8.   Salaam - Oh, Karim  2:30 9.   Salaam - Akhi  5:59 10.   Salaam - Ya, Karim  5:54 11.   Salaam - Tagi  4:15 12.   All This Is That - Hanuman's Dance  13:06 13.   All This Is That - Sky Valley  5:59 14.   All This Is That - Blues Tinge  5:02 15.   All This Is That - Atman Alone Abides  2:56 CD2: 1.   Desire - Wild Orchids Bloom  6:42 2.   Desire - Advaita  3:35 3.   Desire - Chomolungma  12:57 4.   Devotion - Sally Sunflower Whitecloud  3:06 5.   Devotion - My Lord, My Lord  6:11 6.   Devotion - Windy Mountain  5:36 7.   Devotion - Through Fields And Underground  3:48 8.   Light Of Love - Mi Corazon  3:24 9.   Light Of Love - Beloved, Chimes At Midnight  5:18 10.   Light Of Love - Take A Chance  4:04 11.   Surrender - Perfume Of The Desert  4:31 12.   Surrender - Benares  2:21 13.   Surrender - Amor  4:25 14.   Surrender - Forever Dance  1:53 15.   Surrender - Bis  3:44
Links/Resources

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