Music Review

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels

Presented by World Music/CRASHarts. At Berklee Performance Center, Sunday

With the exception of a period in the ’80s when he more or less dropped out, the Memphis-born saxophonist, flutist, and composer Charles Lloyd has been a star for most of his life. At this point (he turns 78 on March 15), his live shows are major events, where listeners hang on every note: music as refuge. That was the case Sunday night at his performance for a hefty house at Berklee Performance Center, presented by World Music/CRASHarts.

Lloyd was following the release this month of “I Long to See You,’’ a new CD with his latest band, the Marvels. The group retains two rhythm players from his New Quartet of the last decade, bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland, while adding guitarist Bill Frisell and pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz.

Lloyd and Frisell are perfect temperamental complements, each given more to intuition and flow than to calculated climaxes. Both revel in melodic beauty for its own sake, patiently and with no need to push and pull with virtuoso flourishes.

“I Long to See You’’ comprises both originals and folk tunes, resilient melodies with simple harmonic structures. At Berklee, Lloyd took Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War’’ long and leisurely, like a hymn, with only Harland’s slapping triplets driving the surge of the 6/8 rhythm, making the piece sound at once fast and slow.

Most of the 75-minute set was like that — subdued intensity, Lloyd’s tumbling ornaments never obscuring the simple beauty of tunes like his “La Llorona’’ or the 19th-century hymn “Abide With Me.’’ Frisell and Leisz, meanwhile, created a sustained weave of melody and harmony.

Not that there wasn’t an undercurrent of dance rhythm — Lloyd often picked up a pair of maracas to join Harland in creating the pulse, or danced in place. Lloyd’s “Of Course, Of Course’’ (with flute) had a funky bebop line, and “Dorotea’s Studio’’ had a norteño lilt.

Some of the best moments of the night were the simplest — the way the band lavished attention on the melody of the folk song “Shenandoah,’’ or the way Frisell and Leisz took turns with the lovely bridge of Brian Wilson’s “In My Room’’ (Lloyd played with the Beach Boys for a spell). The final encore of “Abide With Me’’ was an apt benediction. Lloyd encouraged the audience to take the music home with them, “because sometimes the world is a strange place.’’

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels

Presented by World Music/CRASHarts. At Berklee Performance Center, Sunday.

Jon Garelick can be reached at jon.garelick@globe.com.