| When Lloyd appeared with drummer Chico Hamilton in the Peace and Love 70's, he was heralded by some listeners as another Eric Dolphy and a prime Coltrane acolyte. I'm sure it had to do with the train whistle overtones he played.
But Lloyd's fresh, melodic style did capture some parts of John Coltrane's tonal and spiritual gains of the 60's and 70's and — whether you judge him as a kind of popularizer or not — Lloyd's personalized sounds did penetrate through to a listening population. He's a name.
So to hear "Forest Flower" — a big hit for Lloyd, back in the day — was to be recalled and refreshed by the swift sweep of his melodies and the high voice-and-cry of his tenor saxophone, all in relationship to a pulsing drone and the rhythm section's punctuated support.
Lloyd's solos mostly stayed close to the melody, with the exception of a flute excursion in which the blues informed his nudging solo lines, and though he'd fly into brief passages of free-form honks and skronks, he always returned home to his upswept piano/tenor unisons.
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