On Thursday, October 31, Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet will make its debut performance at the Outpost. Comprising five stellar improvisers—Melford (piano and melodica), Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Tomeka Reid (cello), and Leslie Mok (drums)—the group plays vivid, life-affirming compositions by Melford, a sensitive synesthete, inspired by the paintings of Cy Twombly, specifically his Gaeta Set (For the Love of Fire and Water). Musically Speaking had the opportunity to speak with Melford, one of the brightest luminaries on the jazz scene.
First a little background. The quintet, which first played together in 2019, has released two stunning albums, For the Love of Fire and Water (2022) and Hear the Light Singing (2023). The first offers 10 compositions, which in performance have sometimes been accompanied by 10 of Twombly’s drawings. The second presents five compositions, which Melford calls “Insertions,” designed to be played with the original 10, though they stand on their own musically. Each of the five spotlights one of the quintet’s members.
Melford’s compositions develop with an emotionally pregnant logic of their own, with dynamic relationships between collaboration and collision, density and weightlessness, light and dark. Her lines are so organic, so immediate and surprising, that it is sometimes difficult to identify, with certainty, if you are hearing a composed line or an improvised line. The improvisational contributions of all five members of the quintet, whether solo or in one combination or another, deliver lively and complete explorations of the compositions’ opportunities.
The interview, recorded on October 13, has been lightly edited for clarity.
Melford: Hello
MS: Hi, Myra, it’s Mel.
Melford: I know. How are you doing?
MS: I’m doing well. How are you?
Melford: I’m okay, thank you.
MS: Great. I’m always better after I listen to these albums. I can tell you that. I’ll get the gushing over with right away. They’re really spectacular, and I absolutely love them. I so wanted to see you all in Houston last year, but I couldn’t pull that off. I’m glad you’re coming to the Outpost.
Melford: Yeah, me, too. Me, too. That’s so nice. Thank you.
MS: You’re welcome. What exactly is the program these days? I know there have been a lot of changes since you kind of combined things, drop things out, added things. What’s going on? What are we going to hear?
Melford: Well, I’ve kind of settled on one or two different orders of using the new insertions from Hear the Light Singing; a few of the sections from the original recording, For the Love of Fire and Water; and I’ve added in, so far, three new short pieces that I’m calling “Interludes.” We may have one or two more of those by the time we come to Albuquerque. We’ll see if I can be productive this week, but that’s basically it. I’m also then working on a whole new set of music that I hope will become the third recording, but we probably won’t start playing that until we’ve got some dates, you know, in 2025.
MS: Right. Okay. Speaking of playing with these people, what kind of direction do you give these incredible performers for sections where they’re going to be improvising?
Melford: It’s not very much, to be honest with you. I mean, the reason I hired them [laughs] is because their instincts are so great. What they do know from me is like either, you know, in the case of, say, like Ingrid’s solo at the beginning of “Insertion Five” or Mary’s at the beginning of “Four” or Tomeka’s at the beginning of “Two,” they know what the material is that they’re leading into. So I totally trust them to find a musical way to set that up. I mean, I might say, you know, I’d like a certain kind of effect, you know, but even so, I really don’t like to say much.
MS: I guess with people of this caliber, you don’t really need to say too much. They’re phenomenal, and I think Ingrid, the first time I heard Ingrid was on the first recording with this group, and she just knocked my socks off. I mean, what a phenomenal player. She’s so alive, and there’s a kind of animal quality in her tone and her sound that it just makes the hair on my arms stand up sometimes.
Melford: Oh, yeah, it’s really amazing.
MS: The material in the second album, I’m really intrigued particularly by the second piece, and what my notes say about it is that it feels like it’s rooted in music that’s centuries old, yet it still kind of sounds like tomorrow. Where did that music come from, Myra?
Melford: I wish I knew. I wish I could find it all the time. I don’t know, you know. I just— I don’t know. It’s really mysterious. The older I get the more mysterious I think it is.
MS: I hear Africa. I hear Spain in there. I hear the Middle East and just sounds . . . I don’t know it just seems to be operating on multiple levels at the same time.
Melford: That’s really cool to hear. I mean, I think I’ve always been trying to, you know, like synthesize the way I’ve been influenced or inspired by lots of different kinds of music. But I’m not thinking of those places or those musics when I’m writing. You know, I’m really just hoping something good comes through.
MS: Well, so far you’ve been pretty lucky, I would say, Myra.
Melford: Thank you.
MS: You mentioned—I guess I saw this in the press release for the first—you talked about gesture and energy and how important they were to you. Could you expand on that a little bit?
Melford: Well, I mean, as you know, the music on both of these records is responding to some drawings by the post-abstract expressionist artist Cy Twombly, and that’s really what I relate to in his work. I remember going to a retrospective of Twombly’s work at MoMA in New York in 1994, and I just remember walking into the first gallery and seeing these chalkboard paintings and drawings and various things, and just felt like somehow that that was a visualization of how I liked to play the piano. In terms of energy and gesture, you know, like that. I’m sure you already know that I’m a very kinesthetic player, and for me, the physicality of producing the sound is just as important as the sound itself.
MS: You know that’s so interesting because when I listened— I think it was the first one. I’ll have to go back and look at my notes, but what struck me was— I know you’re not writing program music, but I had this overwhelming sense that in some way the music reflected the activity of the artist putting brush against the canvas. There was one place in particular where Tomeka did something on the cello, that I thought, “Oh, my God, that’s a brush being dragged across canvas,” and so that’s how that gesture and energy speaks to me.
Melford: Well, the thing is, I think there’s a lot of— Hmmm, correspondence? I’m not sure that’s the word I want to use, but like between when we’re making things as artists, whether it’s sound or a visualization of something, or you know, a building, anything, I think the things that go into it are not so different from one another, but how they’re manifested is different, you know? Because I wasn’t asking people in the band to do anything, as you say, programmatic in relation to drawing or painting or whatever. But I think they’re just are those natural correspondences. Anyway, that’s really cool that you heard that.
MS: It’s amazing to me that this group seemed to come together kind of almost by accident. Am I correct that this was kind of, you know, these people were all in town at the same time in New York, and you thought this would be fun to play with these people. Is that kind of how it came together?
Melford: Yup. It wasn’t until we finished that first gig that I was like, “Oh, wow, I think this could be an amazing band, and I would like to flesh out the music and write more music for them.” So that’s how it started.
MS: Is it easier to write for these people once you know them, or are there different kinds of challenges in writing for someone you know so well?
Melford: Well, like for instance, the music for the second record was easier than the first record because I did know them, and I was writing specifically to feature them in some way into the pieces. Now, writing a third set of music is sort of a new challenge. It’s like, Okay, I’ve done this other stuff. Now what else can we do? And that’s the stage I’m at right now.
MS: I also want to mention I really love Mary’s playing here and elsewhere, and I think her use of effects is so spectacular, so disciplined, if you will, adds so much to the sound of this band. Is that something that you encouraged, or is that something she just did on her own?
Melford: Both. That was one of the reasons I wanted to work with her, and I’m certain in certain instances, like when I’m writing something, you know, I’ll say, “I’m hearing this kind of effect. Can you do that?” And then she’ll tell me what she can do, and we kind of go back and forth. But I also just totally trust her instincts.
MS: I mean, her opening of, I guess it’s “Insertion Four” on the second album is just stunning. I don’t know how she does that, but I’m glad she does.
Melford: Yeah.
MS: One other question for you, Myra. Will you do any projection of images at the Outpost?
Melford: No, I won’t. We have done that on a couple of occasions with this music, but it’s a whole other level of production that’s not easy to do when I’m on the road. So I’m not planning to do it on this tour.
MS: Okay. I guess I do have one last question. The last time we talked, it was about Snowy Egret, and you told me about the remarkable dream you had that gave the band its name. I wonder if you had any kind of dream connections with this band?
Melford: That was such a special dream, but I don’t think so. Not really, not like a real sleeping dream. Well, that’s a great question, yeah.
MS: Thank you so much for your time. I’m really looking forward to hearing this band live.
Melford: Oh, great. Thank you so much, and I’ll look forward to seeing you at the Outpost.
Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet
Thursday, October 31, 7:30 p.m.
Weil Hall at the Outpost Performance Space
210 Yale SE, Albuquerque
Tickets: $15–$35
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