Myra Melford Trio

Pianist Myra Melford arrived in New York City at an auspicious time, poised to join other top artists of the downtown jazz scene as a new community of collaborating musicians expanded the opportunities for creative expression. Born in Evanston, Illinois (just north of Chicago), Melford's interest in jazz had been sparked during her time as an undergraduate at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and after studying at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, she made her way to N.Y.C. in 1984, where she furthered her studies with Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill, and began performing with the likes of Threadgill, Leroy Jenkins, and Butch Morris. Melford drew from the influences of her mentors, but rapidly developed a singular voice that melded rhythmic power and drive, melodic lyricism, harmonic inventiveness, and improvisational prowess -- while reflecting her deep admiration for the blues. As the '80s drew to a close, she began raising her profile as a performer in her own right with appearances at the original Knitting Factory venue. In fact, the aptly titled solo piano piece "Some Kind of Blues" on the 1989 compilation Live at the Knitting Factory, Vol. 2 is one of Melford's earliest performances on record (although she had issued a solo piano cassette entitled One for Now in 1986). Her first ensemble as a leader, however, was formed in 1990: the Myra Melford Trio, featuring the pianist accompanied by two other significant contributors to New York's creative jazz scene, bassist Lindsey Horner and drummer Reggie Nicholson. Juilliard-trained native New Yorker Horner had performed with Herb Robertson and Bobby Previte, and Nicholson was originally from Chicago (and a member of the AACM), moving to N.Y.C. in 1988 and -- like Melford -- subsequently entering the orbit of Morris, Pullen, and other groundbreaking artists of the time; a veteran of Amina Claudine Myers ensembles during the '80s, Nicholson had also performed and recorded with Threadgill, appearing on You Know the Number, the saxophonist's Sextett album released in 1987. In addition to its club on Houston Street, the Knitting Factory was also in the tour business, and sent the Myra Melford Trio on a European tour in the spring of 1990. After returning to N.Y.C., the trio recorded its debut album, Jump, at the Magic Shop in June, and the album was released by the Enemy label (home of Last Exit) later that year. The album would be the first of two trio albums released by Enemy; two years later, the label would issue Now & Now, which the threesome recorded in the summer of 1991 at Chelsea's Baby Monster Studio. These two albums received justifiable acclaim in the creative and avant jazz world, but as various tours had demonstrated to audiences at the time, the Myra Melford Trio was best experienced in a live setting, and the group's next album, Alive in the House of Saints, released by Hat Hut in 1993, would prove that fact. Recorded at two German venues in February of that year during another European tour, the album found the trio premiering new material but also revisiting pieces from Jump, and the expansive live versions demonstrated that Melford, Horner, and Nicholson were operating at their highest levels of dynamic interplay yet. Regarded by many as the Myra Melford Trio's definitive album, Alive in the House of Saints was re-released in a two-disc expanded edition by Hatology in 2001, providing additional evidence of the group in peak form. After recording two studio albums and one live disc with her trio, Melford was ready to expand the textures and timbres available to her as a bandleader, composer, and improviser, while building on the rapport already established through years of playing with Horner and Nicholson. Her next project -- the Myra Melford Extended Ensemble -- thus featured the trio as a foundation, but expanded the group to a quintet with the addition of trumpeter Dave Douglas and reedman Marty Ehrlich. Back in Europe on tour with this larger band in the spring of 1994, Melford recorded her second live Hat Hut album, Even the Sounds Shine, at the Börse venue in Wuppertal, Germany. "By adding horns to the group," Melford explained in her liner notes to the album, "I was looking to expand the sonic and structural possibilities while still exploring the uses of improvisation to develop written material." While Melford's original trio placed her inimitable stamp on the piano/bass/drums form, the Extended Ensemble signaled Melford's ability to express her uniqueness on a larger canvas, despite the group's standard jazz quintet lineup. Her next group, The Same River, Twice (premiering with an eponymous album released by Gramavision in 1996), would also feature an expanded instrumental palette, but this time moving away from the traditional "piano trio with horns" quintet model in the ensemble's bass-less five-piece lineup of Melford on piano joined by trumpeter Douglas, cellist Erik Friedlander, reedman Chris Speed, and drummer Michael Sarin (all of whom had established themselves on the downtown scene; in fact, Friedlander, Speed, and Sarin were all members of groups fronted by Douglas). The Myra Melford Trio could still be found out on the road, mightily impressing audiences as late as 1997, but no further recordings would be forthcoming from the ensemble of Melford, Horner, and Nicholson, and Melford -- always exploring new instrumental configurations -- would not return to the piano/bass/drums format on record until the release of Big Picture, the 2007 Cryptogramophone debut by Trio M, a collaborative threesome featuring the pianist with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson.
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