Hagar's Song, the newest release from longtime ECM luminary Charles Lloyd, is an interactive duo recording with Jason Moran, the pianist who has been a key member of Lloyds latter-day quartet, contributing to the albums Rabo de Nube (2008), Mirror (2010) and Athens Concert (2012). Hagar's Song, a collection of intimacy and homage, features pieces especially dear to Lloyd, ranging from compositions by Billy Strayhorn ("Pretty Girl" a/k/a "Star-Crossed Lovers"), Duke Ellington ("Mood Indigo") and George Gershwin ("Bess, You Is My Woman Now") to a standard strongly associated with Billie Holiday ("You've Changed"), Brian Wilson's most famous Beach Boys ballad ("God Only Knows") and a Bob Dylan song definitively interpreted by the Band ("I Shall Be Released"). The centerpiece of the album is the title suite composed by Lloyd and dedicated to his great-great-grandmother, who was taken from her home in south Mississippi at age 10 and sold to a slave-owner in Tennessee.

The release of Hagar's Song comes in time to help mark Lloyd's 75th birthday, on March 15, 2013. About the pieces that constitute Hagar's Song, the saxophonist says: Music has always been my inspiration and consolation I hope to give the same. The songs we chose for the recording are part of the continuous thread of music that is my life.

1. Pretty Girl
2. Mood Indigo
3. Bess, You Is My Woman Now
4. All About Ronnie
5. Pictogram
6. You’ve Changed
7. Hagar Suite: I. Journey Up River
8. Hagar Suite: II. Dreams Of White Bluff
9. Hagar Suite: III. Alone
10. Hagar Suite: IV. Bolivar Blues
11. Hagar Suite: V. Hagar’s Lullaby
12. Rosetta
13. I Shall Be Released
14. God Only Knows

CD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ARX2WLK/?tag=imwan-20

MP3
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BG990SM/?tag=imwan-20