Mondays With Morgan is a column in LondonJazz Information written by Morgan Enos, a music journalist based mostly in Hackensack, New Jersey. Therein, he dives deep into the jazz that strikes him – his principal focus being the scene in close by New York Metropolis.

This week, Enos spoke with Linda Might Han Oh, whose mastery of acoustic and electrical bass — in addition to composition — has received her quite a few honorifics and awards, together with a GRAMMY in 2022 for an look on Terri Lyne Carrington’s New Requirements Vol. 1.

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Oh’s new album, The Glass Hours, is out now on Biophilia Data. A purchase order hyperlink could be discovered on the backside of this text.

On condition that the pandemic was a common expertise, it turned one thing of a chorus for jazz musicians — numberless practitioners leaned on it within the press, and never with out good motive. (Particularly given the dispiriting financial realities of attempting to hack it throughout this era.)

What makes bassist and composer Linda Might Han Oh’s response to this world tragedy stand out? This nicely of emotion is instantly perceptible within the music — not simply the one sheet. 

On her enveloping new album, The Glass Hours, isolation, loss and resilience permeate every notice she performs — each melody, concord and rhythm she orchestrates.

“From a younger age, once I was studying music as a child, I do keep in mind music lessons the place we have been inspired to consider how we really feel; how does making music make us really feel?” Oh tells LondonJazz Information. “I take into consideration that once I’m writing; I take into consideration that once I’m improvising and soloing.”

That includes vocalist Sara Serpa, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Fabian Almazan, and drummer Obed Calvaire, The Glass Hours is freighted with the struggles and joys of all the pieces Oh skilled since her final chief album, 2019’s Aventurine.

On this interim, she’s been on fireplace creatively. She’s appeared on albums led by guitarist Pat Metheny, saxophonists Jim Snidero and Paul Jones, saxophonist Walter Smith III and guitarist Matthew Smith, trumpeter Dave Douglas, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington.

She additionally skilled a throttling lockdown — so far as nationwide borders have been involved — and she or he and her husband, Almazan, gave start to a child boy [find link to Oh’s interview for LJN’s ‘Mothers in Jazz’ series at the bottom of this article]. “These previous couple of years have made my music develop and develop in a manner that I didn’t actually know it might,” Oh says.

Learn on for an in-depth interview with Oh concerning the street to The Glass Hours, her rapport together with her accompanists and the way the extremes of the final a number of years ignited her creativity.

LondonJazz Information: Are you able to summarise what’s occurred in your life and profession since Aventurine? It looks like it’s been a wild journey.

Linda Might Han Oh: Yeah, it has been a wild journey. After I began scripting this music, it was earlier than the pandemic, round 2018. After we first began taking part in the primary incarnations of this music, it was on the Jazz Gallery [in New York City].

I used to be considering of, principally, all the identical subjects — the thought of the fragility of time, notably. It’s fascinating how a lot of what I used to be writing about nonetheless resonates with me at present in a really robust manner. 

Over the pandemic, it much more heightened the thought of the fragility of time and what we do with it, however I believe all people’s idea of time shifted at that time. 

I believe everybody questioned what they have been doing, and what was responsible for them blissful — desirous about what selections have been obtainable to them, in the event that they had these selections. How they needed to spend their time working, with their household, et cetera.

All of this music did change and evolve, contemplating that. By means of that point — since 2018, 2019 — I used to be doing various touring at that time, after which, a really abrupt cease in 2020. 

I used to be invited on tour with Pat Metheny in South America, and we needed to make the choice whether or not or to not proceed on from Argentina by means of to Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Cuba — the place we nonetheless had different reveals. And one after the other, all of them began falling like dominoes.

Fabian was on his method to the Hollywood Bowl when he received a name to not go to the airport, and to show round. It was scary for everybody — a time of uncertainty.

On the similar time, there was this pause, the place it enabled Fabian and I — who weren’t imagined to see one another for months after touring — to truly be with one another. To mirror and [laughs] even have dinner with one another, which was so uncommon on the time.

I used to be fortunate to nonetheless have the ability to make music with Fabian — to do reside recordings and reside streams, due to extremely resourceful musicians for Dwell in Our Residing Rooms, which was a fee of [vocalist and composer] Sirintip, [saxophonist and woodwindist] Owen Broder and [fellow vocalist and composer] Thana Alexa. 

And [bassist] Anthony Tidd, along with his livestream mission, and different venues that have been actually up to the mark; they supplied alternatives and platforms for musicians, and I used to be actually grateful for that.

LJN: I do know having a toddler has been a monumental a part of this time.

LMHO: Round that point, I received pregnant, and we determined to return to our hometown of Perth, the place there was actually no Covid. That they had shut down their borders as a state, and it wasn’t straightforward to get in. We have been fortunate to get in in time and to be with household, and spend that point there.

I used to be nonetheless educating, and nonetheless attempting to do reside streams. I gave start to a child boy, Nilo, who’s the centre of my world in the meanwhile. It’s been a juggling act of motherhood, educating, performing, and composing, nevertheless it’s been such an invigorating problem.

Total, it’s been a extremely fulfilling few years, and I simply really feel extremely fortunate. I believe plenty of this music pertains to how I really feel so privileged in some ways. A few of the songs that I wrote are kind of prayers for hope for issues to be higher.

LJN: How so?

LMHO: For instance, a music like “Jus Advert Bellum”; there are folks on this world who don’t have the identical luck as me, only for the sheer issue of me being born in a household, in a spot the place I’ve not needed to take care of being recruited off to conflict, or residing in a warzone.

I take into consideration plenty of this stuff once I’m scripting this music; it’s not like that for folks around the globe. So, a few of this music pertains to hope and is kind of a query, a proposal, for us to benefit from the moments we have now with one another.

“Circles” — the hedonic treadmill — is about our pursuit of happiness, notably with materials possessions. However simply that concept of: we expect we’re going to get blissful if we get this one factor, or this occurs. 

It’s kind of designed inside The Glass Hours to be pulled into the current second and to really feel that frantic vitality — and hopefully have the ability to mirror on that and be within the current second. I really feel that plenty of instances.

And one thing concerning the pandemic did make us mirror rather a lot on how we spend our time, and the way we outline happiness.

LJN: Let’s talk about every accompanist on The Glass Hours, beginning with Fabian. Clearly, yours is a extremely private connection, however on a musical stage — as a lot as that dovetails with the private side — inform me the way you guys talk.

LMHO: We’ve been taking part in with one another since 2006, in order that’s 17 years. We’ve spent plenty of time taking part in music collectively in one another’s teams, and as sidepeople in varied different initiatives. 

We discuss rather a lot about our ideas and the best way we work by means of music — how we work in another way, and the way we work equally. It’s such a powerful connection I really feel once I’m taking part in with him, as a result of we have now a lot historical past. 

We’re on the identical web page with plenty of other ways we method melodies and concord; he’s taught me rather a lot about his use of concord. 

It’s at all times a extremely enjoyable exploration with him. He’s at all times so within the second. We frequently have these inside jokes with regards to improvising. If one in every of us does one thing sudden, most frequently, we’ll be alongside for the journey. 

I’ll perhaps have an thought of what we’re going for, and we’ll attempt to get that and see if we are able to create one thing extra thrilling in that specific second. 

There are moments we play songs collectively that we all know nicely, and we’d infer one thing in a barely completely different key or quote one other music of mine, and we’ll try to seize that and see the place that leads. 

It’s actually enjoyable; it’s actually superb to have a relationship like that with somebody — to know one another’s repertoire so deeply and to have the ability to be so versatile within the second. Fabian’s received such robust ears, and he’s able to go together with you. He’s brave, and it’s actually inspiring to play with that vitality in a band.

LJN: Are you able to get into your musical reference to Sara?

LMHO: I’ve recognized Sara for a very long time; we used to play a bit bit years in the past. She was working with the identical supervisor that I used to be working with, Izumi Uchida. 

I can’t keep in mind the primary time we met, however we had plenty of mutual pals who studied at Berklee or NEC. I knew of her work, and her research with pianist Ran Blake. I’m such an enormous fan of Ran Blake; he labored with [the late singer and composer] Jeanne Lee.

And I’ve at all times been an enormous fan of Sara’s voice, and her work. I’ve likened her voice to a wealthy, darkish, full-bodied glass of wine. It’s nothing excessive; it simply embodies this refined magnificence.

We used to play a bit bit in her group, and we had some actually stunning moments through the years. I keep in mind, when Izumi handed [in 2014], we performed this Angolan people music referred to as “Muxima”. It was a extremely unhappy time when Izumi handed; it occurred fairly out of the blue. 

It was only a stunning second to be there with all these fantastic folks, and I keep in mind Sara was pregnant on the time. It was simply such a shifting time to play duo. It’s such a stunning music: [sings] “Muxima ue ue, muxima ue ue.”

I’ve at all times needed to have a mission that includes her, and I’m glad that we made it occur. She’s a fellow Biophilian, so we care about the identical points and I actually admire her — musically and in any other case. 

To not point out all her work with M³ [Mutual Mentorship for Musicians]; she and [vocalist, composer and M³ co-founder] Jen Shyu are two of essentially the most hard-working folks that I do know. I’m so glad she’s on this.

LJN: Are you able to discuss concerning the incorporation of spoken phrase on The Glass Hours?

LMHO: Sure, this specific music the place I featured Sara known as “Antiquity.” 

It paints an image of somebody who’s caught up to now — who’s maybe caught in entrance of a display screen, or TV, and is simply being fed data that solidifies their beliefs and isn’t difficult their very own perception methods. 

They’re simply watching the identical factor over and over — the identical information, they usually’re wishing for this concept of what was once with out seeing what’s taking place exterior, or within the current second. 

So, the lyrics reference “The sound of glass, the sparkle of a heartbeat,” of somebody who’s there however probably not there. Who’s bodily alive, however perhaps not precisely there.

It references the humdrum day by day life, and the way we’re creatures of behavior. A previous that repeats itself over and over. It’s a remark — a caricature piece about somebody who’s like this, and can we need to be like this? I wrote this considering of that kind of particular person — is that somebody I’d need to be? They’re caught in their very own blissful ignorance — in some kind of purgatory. 

So, that’s how I used it in that context, and that’s the one time the place there may be spoken phrase on the album. The opposite lyrics are in “Jus Advert Bellum.” I didn’t need it to be an album with plenty of spoken phrase; I simply felt it was vital for that specific piece, to elucidate a little bit of the narrative extra.

LJN: The inclusion of Mark Turner is fascinating to me; Fabian performs on [tenor saxophonist] Melissa Aldana’s subsequent report, and I do know she’s within the Turner college. Inform me about your conception of him on this world, how your paths crossed and what led him to play on this report.

LMHO: I’ve been fortunate sufficient to play with Mark just a bit bit, at varied [stages]. I believe the primary time we performed with one another was at a educating residency at Stanford Jazz [Workshop]. 

Additionally, in Denmark at [the summer jazz camp in] Vallekilde, I received to see him along with his college students. He’s at all times been a hero of mine; he’s been on so many data that I’ve actually cherished.

I really like him as a composer, and simply his model — his stunning, heat, darkish sound, which I believe blends so nicely with Sara’s voice. You possibly can hear them on Sara’s [2020] album [Recognition] that options Mark. After I heard that, I used to be like, “Ooh, this may make an awesome mixture.” To listen to that sound and persona on my songs was an actual journey, ?

LJN: It’s a deal with to listen to Obed Calvaire seem for the primary time since your debut album, Entry. Inform me about your reference to him.

LMHO: Yeah, Obed’s on my first report, which is a trio report with [trumpeter and composer] Ambrose Akinmusire. 

Over time, moreover that album, I’ve performed with Obed simply perhaps on and off, as a result of he’s so, so busy. He’s such an unimaginable drummer; he’s so devoted to his artwork. There’s actually nothing that he can’t do on the drums. 

I used to be fortunate to have him on this report, and what he brings: his deep sense of groove and his sound are two issues that I actually join with as a bass participant.

I believe as a bass participant, drummers are my primary connection within the band, ? It’s received to be somebody that we belief, and somebody who’s additionally going to problem us and push us. And Obed does simply that.

This one music, “The Crucial”: I’m actually glad that options him towards the tip. That music’s about grit and resilience — of pushing by means of to the opposite facet of the pandemic and what we went by means of.

LJN: How does The Glass Hours mirror your evolution as a bassist and composer?

LMHO: There are fairly just a few issues embedded on this music that occur to be more difficult, by way of issues I used to be engaged on with the instrument, and by way of rhythm, in an effort to create motion and emotion by means of this music, and this stress and launch.

Like, I constructed these rhythms which are a bit extra complicated to focus on among the stress. Within the first monitor, “Circles,” though there’s a pulse, there are all these rhythmic explorations; it’s sort of laborious to understand onto. That’s the thought; it’s this treadmill reminding us that we by no means fairly cease.

However on the similar time, it’s fairly dramatic in the best way the album flows. You begin off with one thing that’s fairly frantic, and it looks like there’s nearly no grounding, till the very finish. And that leads onto the stark “Antiquity.” There are sharp contrasts of temper, of house, to essentially spotlight these variations.

So far as my evolution, I really feel like I took extra dangers with The Glass Hours, and including among the vocal textures — in addition to including lyrics, which I don’t do too usually — these components I actually thought rather a lot about whereas I used to be scripting this.

And I deliberately needed a quintet to sound greater and fuller than a quintet, ? Though there are some very open components, it’s orchestrated in a manner the place — notably within the bass — I’m taking part in a couple of half at one time, and doing a couple of perform.

LINKS: Linda Might Han Oh’s web site

Buy The Glass Hours

Linda Might Han Oh interviewed for LJN ‘Moms in Jazz’

(notice: the sideperson appearances cited within the intro are collected right here and right here)