It's Charles Lloyd again on ECM, a label that understood his grace-under-fire approach and appreciated his distinct voice when others carped that his approach was too meditational. For this recording ECM gives Lloyd an all-star band to work with: drummer Billy Higgins, John Abercrombie, and Dave Holland . The results caught here suggest that Lloyd is at his best with the conceptual enrichment that a great rhythm section provides. There's a return to one-time hot tune "Forest Flower" and other Lloyd period pieces, but also some new compositions and Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach's "God Give Me Strength" and Billy Strayhorn's "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing." Through it all, guitarist Abercrombie is delicately funky, and Holland and Higgins play with a guileless intensity that makes Lloyd seem quite appropriate, and maybe even essential, to our moment. --John F. Szwed