Charles Lloyd has been an unacknowledged genius working in plain sight for far too long. Ever since his remarkable series of albums on the ECM label that began with Fish Out Of Water in 1990, the creativity and invention of his playing seems to have increased in direct proportion with each year passing year, so that with 8, his 80th birthday concert at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara on March 15, 2018, he has produced one of the most satisfying albums of his career.

Every note he plays here is valuable; he is the eternal storyteller whose melodic lines assume a narrative arc whose logic somehow seems analogous to the ages old storyteller’s art. Certainly there are elements in the construction of his solos that correspond, however, tenuously, to what is known as Freytag’s pyramid – exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and a return to “home”. Often, the narrative can involve conflict and on ‘Dream Weaver’ this is represented by a passage of inside/outside turbulence before returning to resolution and a return home of the hero. And in the best storytelling tradition, every hero has his followers – here, his regular accompanists Gerald Clayton and Reuben Rogers are augmented by guitarist Julien Lage.

Like all great artists, Lloyd seems to lift those around him to greater deeds of derringdo – think Duke Ellington as an example of this. And here Lage, whom Gary Burton did so much to focus attention on, never sounded better than he does here. Guest Don Was on bass acquits himself faultlessly while Booker T Jones (of Booker T and the MGs fame), whom he and Lloyd go way back to their formative days as musicians in Memphis, does – what else? – ‘Green Onions’. Lloyd, whose early career includes stints as a sideman in the bands of BB King, Howlin’ Wolf and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, decides to remind the world what a masterful blues player he is, and raises the roof in the process. On his 80th birthday, Lloyd just happens to have produced a jazz classic, which is to say an album that people will be playing in decades to come.