Universal Sound are releasing this extremely rare and in demand deep, spiritual jazz album, Lloyd McNeill’s "Washington Suite". The CD and album are bespoke original cover art reproductions. The CD comes in limited deluxe hardback Jap style gatefold card. The heavyweight vinyl pressing is very limited to 1000 worldwide.

Flautist and composer Lloyd McNeill is also a distinguished American painter, poet, and photographer born in Washington, D.C., in 1935. His multi-disciplinary creative life has led to encounters and friendships with Nina Simone, Picasso, Eric Dolphy, Nana Vasconceles and other legendary cultural figures.

McNeill grew up through the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and his life is a reflection of the ideals that the movement stood for. He went to Morehouse College in Atlanta, where earlier Martin Luther King had been educated. King frequently lobbied students at the college for support in marches and demonstrations in the city. McNeill later became one of the first black professors in the American university system. In the mid-1960s he moved to France where he was befriended by Picasso and worked with a number of émigré-jazz musicians whilst living in Paris.

In the late 1960s he taught jazz and painting workshops at the New Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington. In the 1970s he travelled throughout Brazil and West Africa studying music and taught music anthropology in the US. A respected painter and artist, Lloyd McNeill continues to perform as both musician and poet worldwide.

Musically, McNeill has worked in many areas of African-American music. He performed in latin groups in the 1950s and 60s and led his own Brazilian group in the 1970s and 1980s. He has also composed for both ballet and art exhibitions.