Charles Lloyd will release Sangam & Friends, a tribute to Zakir Hussain, on July 24. The album centers on Lloyd’s musical relationship with the tabla player and includes Sangam trio drummer Eric Harland, along with studio recordings made in Mumbai in 2009 for an unfinished album.
The 2009 sessions followed Lloyd’s appearance at Hussain’s annual Abbaji concert, an event honoring Hussain’s father, tabla player Alla Rakha. Producer Dorothy Darr writes in the album’s liner notes that Hussain brought Lloyd to India for the concert, where the saxophonist and flutist first experienced Mumbai’s crowded streets, layered sounds, colors, and food. After the performance, Lloyd, Hussain, and their collaborators went to Nirvana Studio to explore material that had begun onstage.
Most of Sangam & Friends was recorded during one day in February 2009. The expanded ensemble includes Carnatic singer Vijay Prakash, Rakesh Chaurasia on bansuri, Sabir Khan on sarangi, Ranjit Barot on keyboard, and Niladri Kumar on sitar. The musicians planned to return to the material later, but the album was never completed. Additional recordings from the Sangam archive are also included, among them the lead single “Jai Ganga,” featuring Lloyd, Hussain, and Harland.
The release follows Lloyd’s 2024 Blue Note double album The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow, which featured Jason Moran, Larry Grenadier, and Brian Blade and arrived on March 15, Lloyd’s 86th birthday. Lloyd first documented the Sangam trio on the 2006 ECM album Sangam, a live recording with Hussain and Harland captured at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, California, in 2004. In 2025, Blue Note also issued Figure In Blue, recorded after Lloyd’s 87th birthday concert at the Lobero Theater with Moran and guitarist Marvin Sewell. Hussain died on December 15, 2024, at 73, after a career that included work across Indian classical music, jazz, and global collaborations.
Listen to Sangam & Friends here.
