Pieces of a Dream puts it all together

July 5, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Over the past 15 years, jazz act Pieces of a Dream has played hundreds of shows; however, founding keyboardist James Lloyd vividly remembers the last time the act played Youngstown.

“That’s when I met my wife in 1999,” Lloyd said.

Not only did that gig result in marriage, but it also eventually led the Philadelphia-born jazz musician to relocate to Canfield. With all due respect to local musicians in the area, Canfield wasn’t necessarily a bastion of jazz coolness. That is until Lloyd arrived.

“Oh, I love living in Canfield, it’s very cool,” Lloyd said. “A lot of people were like, ‘Huh? What?’ I’ve lived in big cities before and at this point really it’s like if I can get to an airport, I can get to work. And here it’s like you got kind of almost that down-home country friendly kind of vibe that you might not find so much in the big cities.”

For more than 35 years, Lloyd and Pieces of Dream experienced plenty of life in the big cities of America, including Los Angeles, New York City and Las Vegas. Initially the act emerged out of the Philadelphia music scene in 1976 when Lloyd was still in high school. The trio — Lloyd, drummer Curtis Harmon and former bassist Cedric Napoleon — took its name after a Stanley Turrentine tune and quickly caught the ear of jazz legend Grover Washington Jr.

The sax great signed the band to his label and even sat in during a recording of “Mr. Magic.” In the early ’80s, Pieces of a Dream was a staple on smooth jazz radio, with hits such as “Warm Weather,” “Mount Airy Groove” and “Fo Fi Fo.” In fact, today it’s the latter two tracks that Lloyd said still draws a huge reaction from fans.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just something people took to and they still remember it,” Lloyd said. “It really does feel good. It’s an honor to be honest. It’s an honor to have songs like that that stood the test of time. I guess it’s really the people and their love for the music and the band that kept the songs around and us around.”

Looking to the future, Lloyd said it’s important for the band to keep producing new music. Just like a shark, Pieces of a Dream has to always be moving to stay alive. In fact, it was that approach the duo took for its latest effort, 2009’s “Soul Intent.”

Instead of embracing modern technology, the outfit turned back the clock, turned on its creative juices and just let the music fly. The 11-track “Soul Intent” is testament to the group’s innovative and eclectic spirit, which has driven Pieces of a Dream for decades.

“We kind of wanted to go back to the old school way of recording and creating,” Lloyd said. “As technology has advanced and people have embraced it more and more, it seemed like you got to a point where it’s like everything is correspondence. ‘Skype me this’ and ‘I’ll Dropbox you that.’ We were like, ‘OK, we want to actually get together in the same room all of us and get a bunch of ideas and start jamming and record it all.’”

Lloyd said there will be plenty of jamming when Pieces of the Dream headlines the free Youngstown Jazz Fest Saturday at Harrison Common, as part of the YSU Summer Festival of the Arts.

Considering the last time Lloyd played in Youngstown he found his soul mate, what is he hoping to take away from this upcoming show?

“I better not be shopping for a wife or I’ll get in a little trouble there,” Lloyd laughed. “Let’s see, what can I expect to get out of this gig? I’ll have to think about that one.”

The Youngstown Jazz Fest will also include The John Reese Project, Alton Merrell, Laura Varcho and Soundoctrine. It starts at 5 p.m. For more information, go to youngstownjazzfest.com.