Alive in the House of Saints

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Alive in the House of Saints
Live album by Myra Melford

Publication
(s)

1993

Label (s) HatOLOGY

Format (s)

CD / 2 CD

Genre (s)

Modern creative , free jazz

Title (number)

6/10

running time

74: 19/113: 34

occupation

production

Werner X. Uehlinger

Location (s)

Alte Oper , Frankfurt am Main ; The club , Heiligenhaus

chronology
Now and Now
(1991) 		Alive in the House of Saints Eleven Ghosts
(1994)

Alive in the House of Saints is the third music album by pianist Myra Melford under her own name. The recordings were made during two live performances on February 3, 1993 in the Alte Oper Frankfurt and on February 5, 1993 as a WDR production in Der Club in Heiligenhaus . The album was released in the same year on HatHut Records and was re-released in 2001 in an expanded form as a double CD.

The album

In the early 1990s, Myra Melford toured frequently with her trio of Lindsey Horner on bass and Reggie Nicholson on drums. The album Jump was created in 1990 , followed by Now and Now (Enemy, 1991).

The concert recordings from February 1993, which appeared on Alive in the House of Saints , were re-released by a further 38 minutes of material, there are the four tracks Now and Now 1 , Between Now and Then on the first CD and Some Kind of Blues and Now and Now 2 on the second CD. Most of the recordings were made in The Club ; only Now and Now 2 and Live Jump were recorded two days earlier in the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Now and Now 1 and Now and Now 2 are almost identical in structure and duration.

Between Now and Then evokes memories of McCoy Tyner , Horace Tapscott , Don Pullen , Cecil Taylor and Keith Jarrett with his aggressive piano playing . Some Kind of Blues and Breaking Light , on the other hand, are characterized by more ballad-like, bluesy and melodic explorations. Bob Blumenthal , who wrote the liner notes for the re-release, was the blues among the other compositional influences; an "avant groove" is created. In this context he compares Lindsay Horner's role in the Melford Trio with that of Cameron Brown in the Don Pullen / George Adams Quartet; Reggie Nicholson's play, however, ties in with his work with pianist Amina Claudine Myers in the 1980s.

" What set the trio immediately apart was the ability to merge a strong blues feeling with notions of rhythmic and structural complexity associated with the exploratory end of the jazz trio spectrum ."

In May 1994, Myra Melford recorded the tracks That the Peace, Part II Frank Lloyd Wright Goes West to Rest and Evening Might Still on her following HatHut album Even the Sounds Shine in the Wuppertal stock exchange ; she expanded her trio to a quintet (with trumpeter Dave Douglas and woodwind player Marty Ehrlich ).

Title of the album

Myra Melford (Helsinki 1993)
  • Myra Melford: Alive in the House of Saints (HatART CD 6136)
  1. Evening Might Still 11:19
  2. Parts I & II Frank Lloyd Wright Goes West to Rest 18:47
  3. And Silence 12:11
  4. That The Peace 10:42
  5. Breaking Light 8:56
  6. Live Jump 12:25
  • Myra Melford Trio: Alive in the House of Saints (hatOLOGY 2-570)
1-1 Evening Might Still 11:16
1-2 Now & Now 1 6:50
1-3 Between Now & Then 3:54 p.m.
1-4 Parts I & II Frank Lloyd Wright Goes West to Rest 18:50
2-1 Breaking Light 8:57
2-2 Some Kind Of Blues 9:40
2-3 That The Peace 10:44
2-4 And Silence 12:11
2-5 Now & Now 2 6:53
2-6 Live Jump 12:19
  • All compositions are by Myra Melford.

reception

Todd S. Jenkins counts the album in his book Free Jazz and Free Improvisation: An Encyclopedia to the most important releases of 1993. Charlie Gillett and Simon Frith said about Melford's album, ... is my bet for something that will still be making my hair stand on end in another 25 years' time .

Bob Blumenthal said in the liner notes of the re-release (2001) that if you hear the album eight years after its creation as the "first chapter in Myra Melford's recording history", her first trio would evoke "an onslaught of emotions". On the one hand, there are warm memories of the encounters with Melford, Lindsey Horner and Reggie Nicholson; and it fills one with satisfaction to see how the ideas that Melford articulated here as a composer and as a pianist experienced their “metamorphosis to the triumphs of their subsequent music”. "By the clarity of their now historical appearances and their subsequent performances, one hears the current works as both glorious goals and the basis of their ongoing creations". Bob Blumenthal also noted:

“The music expressed a force and unprotected emotionality that bursts out in dynamic arcs, with a sense of design and completeness, which the collective creations of the trio make anything but coincidental. Even if the band broke new ground, it emerged from the jazz tradition . "
The music conveyed a strength and unguarded emotionalism that burst forth in dynamic arcs, with a sense of shape and completeness that made the Trio's collective creations anything but random. Even as the band broke new ground, it was clearly a product of the jazz tradition.

Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ (out of five) stars in Allmusic and counts Melford's trio recordings among her most notable recordings. Evening Might Still (after a James Joyce quote) come stomping therefore, fully formed, and cited unprepared Vince Guaraldis Charlie Brown Christmas Theme: "to build a improvisation basis , which never loses touch with the original and yet completely her own composition is ". She merges Guaraldi's melodic invention with the funkiness of Horace Silver . From there, Melford moved her trio "to their own idea of meter , counterpoint and rhythm ". Parts I & II Frank Lloyd Wright Goes West to Rest is complete rhythm group , time, timbre , [sound] color and a study in improvisational interplay. From here, the mood change to the the post bop embossed And Silence . In summary, Jurek states that although it is not as much avant-garde as her previous studio productions, it is still far more satisfactory; the album highlights "Melford as a great composer and pianist, and also how telepathic this trio is".

Richard Cook and Brian Morton gave the album the second highest rating of 3½ stars in The Penguin Guide to Jazz ; Compared to the previous studio productions (of which Jump seems very composed, Now & Now, however, very spontaneous), the live album is “significantly better.” The new versions of Frank Lloyd Wright Goes West to Rest and Live Jump (from the studio album Jump ) “made an epic one Swing and a size, without sacrificing details and the dense intimacy of the trio. Melford enjoys their plays, and Horner and Nicholson break out with them. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://cryptogramophone.com/artists/myra-melford
  2. ↑ http://www.swapacd.com/Myra-Trio-Melford-Alive-House-Saint/cd/575487/
  3. ↑ a b Bob Blumenthal: Liner Notes 2001
  4. ↑ http://www.discogs.com/Myra-Melford-Extended-Ensemble-Even-The-Sounds-Shine/release/2097341
  5. ↑ http://www.discogs.com/Myra-Melford-Trio-Alive-In-The-House-Of-Saints/release/2286069
  6. ↑ http://www.discogs.com/Myra-Melford-Trio-Alive-In-The-House-Of-Saints/release/1195000
  7. ^ Todd S. Jenkins: Free Jazz and Free Improvisation: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1 . 2004, p. XXXII
  8. ^ Charlie Gillett, Simon Frith: The Beat Goes On: The Rock File Reader . Pluto Press, 1996
  9. ↑ Alive In The House Of Saints ( Memento from March 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Review of the album: Myra Melford - Alive in the House of Saints on Allmusic (English)
  11. ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette . 2nd Edition. Penguin, London 1994, ISBN 0-14-017949-6 , pp. 879 f.