Charles Lloyd - Mug

Don’t be a Fish Out of Water, enjoy a warm beverage in this Mug adorned with a piping hot caricature of jazz titan Charles Lloyd, available exclusively on the Blue Note Store.

11oz Ceramic Mug
Dishwasher and Microwave Safe
Charles Lloyd design printed on front

For more than six decades Charles Lloyd has loomed large over the music world with both his presence and his occasional absence. Born in in 1938 in Memphis, Tennessee, where he apprenticed with jazz and blues legends including Phineas Newborn, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. King. While attending the University of Southern California in the late-1950s, Lloyd performed with prominent artists on the LA jazz scene including Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson, Charlie Haden, and more. In 1960, Lloyd became the music director in the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and later joined the Cannonball Adderley Sextet for a two-year stint before leaving to focus on his own career as a leader. Lloyd signed with Columbia and released his debut album Discovery! in 1964 but it was his album Forest Flower: Live at Monterey in 1967, that catapulted him to international fame as one of the first million-sellers in jazz.

The Quartet went on to perform at rock festivals and venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco where they co-headlined bills with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, while Lloyd also collaborated with the likes of the Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, and The Doors. Then at the peak of his popularity he unexpectedly and voluntarily decided to leave the music world and disappeared to a Big Sur retreat for most of the 1970s and 80s.

In 1989, Lloyd began a 25-year relationship with ECM that re-established the saxophonist as one of the leading creative voices in jazz. Lloyd returned to Blue Note in 2015 and has since experienced yet another bloom in an unparalleled career by releasing a series of high-water mark recordings, including 2024’s globally acclaimed album The Sky Will Be There Tomorrow.