MYRA MELFORD
Genres: Avant-Garde Jazz, 21st Century Modern, Third Stream, Post Bop • United States

Improvising pianist and composer Myra Melford is a sonic explorer whose career has been defined by a restless curiosity and openness to collaborative creativity. A Chicago native, she graduated from Evergreen State College and pursued music studies at the Cornish Institute. After moving to the East Coast in 1982 she studied with several musical innovators, including Ran Blake, Jaki Byard, Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill. During the 1990s, she recorded seven albums as a leader and another eight as co-leader or sideperson that, together with live performances, established her as a distinctive voice with what Duke Ellington scholar Reuben Jackson called “a commitment to refreshing, often surprising uses of melody, harmony and ensemble playing.” In 2000, Melford was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study North Indian music on the harmonium in Calcutta, reflecting her interest in expanding her sound palette beyond the piano and in incorporating non-Western elements into her compositions. read more...