Solace of the Mind

Since joining Chicagos Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in 1966, pianist, organist, vocalist, composer, arranger, and NEA Jazz Master Amina Claudine Myers has engaged with jazz, blues, gospel, soul, and the oral poetic tradition -- from church to street, from club to concert hall. At home in tradition or at the vanguard, shes recorded 16 albums and is credited on hundreds more. In 2024, she joined fellow AACM member Wadada Leo Smith in recording Central Parks Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens for Red Hook Records, the label run by producer Sun Chung. Solace of the Mind, her second outing for the label, is solo; Myers plays piano and organ and speaks in nine original compositions and a traditional song. There are three seconds of silence before she introduces "African Blues," an original recorded with wordless vocals on 1980s Salutes Bessie Smith. The depth of space and silence between her gospel chord voicings adds spiritual dimension to emotionally stirring, reverent pianism. "Song for Mother" is a revisioning of the title track of her 1980 album. It joins classical overtones, gospel, blues, and modern jazz. This, too, is a hymn; it connects to something far larger than the musician or the listener. It evokes memory and the spirits of now absent loved ones. "Senuous" is a gorgeous post-bop tone poem offered with dark, rumbling bass notes, elegant spaces, sparse dissonance, and a modal lyricism. Its answered by her reading of the gospel classic "Steal Away," a song she hated as a child but now claims as a favorite. She initially cut it in an opening medley on 2016s Sama Rou, but here she delivers three minutes of steely conviction, hope, and transcendence. Recorded at home on a Hammond B3, "Ode to My Ancestors" delivers haunting, sustained notes in phase and flutter as Myers recites a poem. "Voices" is songlike but balances subtle dissonance and modalism inside a classical motif via the impressionistic melody. The all-too-brief "Hymn for John Lee Hooker" (1:32) is indeed a folk hymn with resonant chords and serene lyricism. "Twilight," ethereal for much of its opening, reveals Myers following the harmony down a rabbit hole of tonal investigation in the upper and middle registers. She has recorded "Cairo" several times. Its chord progression evolves in a round as she balances blues, post-bop, and hymnody with canny intuition and resonant storytelling. Closer "Beneath the Sun" weds a spacious post-bop architecture to improvisation, classical motivics, and a poignant, arresting lyricism. The set contains liner notes by jazz critic Howard Mandel and Buddhist scholar and historian Robert Thurman. Both stress the calm, resolve, control, and peaceful intention this music articulates. With its reliance on space and silence as co-creators, Solace of the Mind is an intimate, holistic musical portrait of an American jazz composer and pianist. ~ Thom Jurek