CHARLES LLOYD & ZAKIR HUSSAIN

The San Francisco Jazz Festival's "Sacred Space" series is one of the city's best annual jazz events. For this year's concert on November 2, two of the most highly respected musicians in their fields came together for a historic first meeting.

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd has long been a favorite of critics and fans alike for his ever-evolving approach to jazz, which led to the million-selling Forest Flower album in 1966 and a recent string of intensely personal records for ECM. Zakir Hussain is widely regarded as the greatest tabla virtuoso of his generation, and a man who is always ready to explore uncharted musical territory. Together, they made magic at Grace Cathedral. Their triumphant extended set awed a capacity audience while paying tribute to another master of the craft, the late drummer Billy Higgins.

Grace Cathedral at night seemed vast and imposing, a forest of great stone columns thrusting upwards into a murky half-light, then branching out into a delicate lattice of va...