During the late 1960s saxophonist-flautist Charles Lloyd's popularity was rivaled only by Miles Davis's, a state of affairs that riled the jazz establishment and provoked a backlash that apparently played a role in Lloyd's subsequent decade-long retreat to the rugged Big Sur countryside. Critics attacked Lloyd as a Coltrane clone lacking an original voice and implied that his success (that was the real rub, especially because the once popular music had lost a generation of fans to the soul and rock and roll music they heard on the radio) was the result of white audiences favoring white musicians rather than the black musicians who originated the music. They also pointed out, correctly, that the hippies had little if any experience with jazz and were in no position to know good jazz from bad.

In American music, as in the culture as a whole, race factors into everything. Still, entrance requirements to California's parochial mid-'60s counterculture were all about hair and clothes. Lloyd looked the part and was a hit at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival – definitely the right place at the right time – which gave his career a solid jump start. But the Charles Lloyd Quartet, which along with the leader featured three terrific young players (pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Ron McClure, and drummer Jack DeJohnette), made music that was original and sometimes inspired, even if its detractors were too constipated to admit the truth. In concert, their playing was often innovative – Jarrett, in particular, was flexing his muscles with a youthful self-indulgence and over-the-top flair well suited to the moment, and if DeJohnette made his reputation by asserting himself, you could call his tenure with Lloyd a coming-out party, as he filled every space with intricate and maybe overdone flourishes. Despite the lack of modesty, the Quartet's onstage chemistry was good, and though it was said Lloyd's playing was not equal to his bandmates', a listen to Love-In sure didn't prove it to me.