RECORDS: Jazz

Charles Lloyd: Voice in the Night (ECM)

In the mid- to late 1960s, saxophonist and flautist Lloyd was the most popular jazz musician of his generation, with a quartet featuring the young Keith Jarrett on piano. After a long retirement to pursue his spiritual interests, Lloyd re-emerged in the 1990s with a series of albums for ECM, and this latest release is likely to make him a big star once again. It's a dream of an album, in which Lloyd's breathy, mellow-sounding, sax flutters like a butterfly. Dave Holland is on bass, John Abercrombie on guitar and Billy Higgins on drums. The rhythm section's unforced mastery matches the leader's insouciant style perfectly, and if there's a better jazz album this year, it will have to be very good indeed.