Marcello Melis

Free To Dance is the second Black Saint album by the Sardinian bassist Marcello Melis, recorded in New York in May 1978 and released the same year. Where The New Village On The Left... had set a quartet against a vocal group from Orgosolo, this record brings Sardinia in through a single sound, the bells of the Mamuthones, the masked figures of the Mamoiada carnival, recorded there during the 1976 carnival. Around it Melis gathered a large New York band, with two trumpets, two trombones, two basses, two percussionists, piano and two singers.

The trumpets are Enrico Rava and Lester Bowie, the trombones George Lewis and Gary Valente, and Don Pullen plays piano. Jeanne Lee and Sheila Jordan sing, Fred Hopkins joins Melis on bass, and Famoudou Don Moye and Naná Vasconcelos share the percussion. The session was recorded at Downtown Sound and engineered by Bruce Gerstein, with Giacomo Pellicciotti producing. Melis composed and arranged all three pieces. Before The Lights Go On is the shortest, under seven minutes. Struggle To Be runs close to twelve, and the title track, nearly seventeen minutes long, fills most of what was the second side of the LP.

This is the Black Saint CD 120023-2, which Discogs lists as a reissue of the album first released in 1978 as BSR 0023, with the three original pieces.