Marcello Melis

CD version. Angedras is the 1982 suite that bassist Marcello Melis dedicated to Sardinia, recorded for Black Saint with pianist Don Pullen, drummer Famoudou Don Moye and alto saxophonist Sandro Satta. The title is the Italian name of the island, Sardegna, read backwards. The four parts are named after the elements, water, earth, air and fire, and the record lasts just over half an hour. In his liner notes Alberto Rodriguez describes it as a story told in a language drawn from the urban reality of jazz, African rhythm and the melodic tradition of Sardinian shepherds.

The quartet recorded in August 1982 at Sonic Recording Studio, with Melis producing, Massimo Rocci as engineer and Giovanni Bonandrini as executive producer. Melis composed, arranged and wrote the words for all four parts, and besides the double bass he is credited with voice and with a radio dial used as an effect. Pullen came to the session from his own Black Saint records of the late 1970s, while Moye was the drummer of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Angedras 1 (Water) opens at about eight minutes and Angedras 2 (Earth) runs nine. Angedras 3 (Air) is the longest movement at ten minutes, and Angedras 4 (Fire) closes the suite in under six. Rodriguez points to two drives behind the work, an open hunger for melody and a pleasure in breaking the formal rules of jazz. The cover painting is by Susanna Contini and the cover photograph by Nina Contini Melis, and Melis also contributed a poem to the notes.

Black Saint CD 120073-2, which Discogs lists as a 1997 reissue of the album first released on LP in 1983 as BSR 0073.