Over Frisell’s boogieing groove, his quavering upper tone and squabbling whispers muse over languid country-ballad guitar harmonies on Leonard Cohen’s Anthem. Bola de Nieve’s Ay Amor! is a highlight, as is a grippingly dirgelike Monk’s Mood – but the standout is Lloyd’s homage to his old California cronies the Beach Boys, on an ethereally slow-burning bonus-track arrangement of In My Room.

Of course, it’s Lloyd’s eloquent, hypnotic saxophone that moderates the ebb and flow of proceedings, but the musical context with which he surrounds himself suggests a potential for growth in managing the relationship of the electric to the acoustic. A big step in that direction comes with Tone Poem, that with the absence of vocals places Lloyd and his ensemble centre stage for a more detailed update on their direction of travel.

Tone Poem not only dispenses with vocals but, apart from a hymn-like rendering of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem,” most of the rock trappings. Instead of covering Dylan or Hendrix, this album goes for Monk and Ornette,albeit in a strongly pop-inflected style. Coleman’s “Ramblin’,” for
instance, is more blues-rock than free-jazz, pushed along by Eric Harland’s second-line pulse, and framed by both the feedback-spiced jab of Bill Frisell’s guitar and the freight-train whine of Greg Leisz’s pedal steel.

Lloyd’s band keeps it loose and free, but there’s no mistaking the brilliant chemistry between each member of the ensemble. His familiar collaborators, Rogers and Harland, do an excellent job of holding together the tunes with a certain effortless elasticity. Even with all the individual players adding their own textures and flavours to the tracks, Lloyd himself remains the sole guide throughout the hour-plus runtime of Tone Poem, be it on sax or flute; seamlessly blending the sounds of heartland Americana and his Memphis blues past into his jazzy concoction.