Two jazz luminaries return to San Francisco for a world premiere collaboration with Alonzo King. Tenor saxophonist Charles Lloyd and pianist Jason Moran perform their second commissioned score for LINES Ballet, again placing their distinct signatures on the evolution of modern jazz. The work also features a light installation designed by Jim Campbell, the internationally renowned electronic artist whose work crowns the San Francisco skyline atop Salesforce Tower.
An NEA Jazz Master and inductee to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, Charles Lloyd’s lifetime achievement has been recognized with some of the highest honors in the field. He shares a boundless, multidisciplinary approach to his craft with Jason Moran, a MacArthur Fellow and Artistic Director for Jazz at the Kennedy Center. As composers, Lloyd and Moran find creative reciprocity with King at LINES Ballet. SAND, their 2016 collaboration was “an instant classic” according to the San Francisco Chronicle; the score was called “mesmerizing” by the San Jose Mercury News. “Alonzo has a way of hearing,” explains Moran. “His choreography becomes melodic content.” King’s work reveals ballet dancers and jazz musicians as not-so-distant kin—in their bodies, sacred texts of the past are discovered anew. In Lloyd’s words, jazz “is a music of freedom and wonder.” Around it, three masters commune.
Performances will be at The Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA, 700 Howard Street, San Francisco.
Alonzo King’s AZOTH I Photography by © Manny Crisostomo
SF/ARTS Editorial I Alonzo King
New York Times I Alonzo King and Jason Moran
Alonzo King LINES Ballet benefits from the support of Bank of the West / BNP Paribas Foundation for the development of its projects.
Alonzo King LINES Ballet | Dancer: Shuaib Elhassan and Michael Montgomery | RJ Muna