Jazz Articles about Myra Melford

Big Air: Big Air

by Chris May
March 2, 2009

Big Air is the debut album by the genre-mashing transatlantic quintet of saxophonist Steve Buckley, trumpeter Chris Batchelor, and tuba player Oren Marshall, from the UK, and pianist Myra Melford and drummer Jim Black, from the USA. It comes carrying weighty expectations--Big Air's infrequent performances have enlivened the British jazz scene. The band caused a stir at the London Jazz Festival in 2005, and another at north London's Vortex club in late 2008.

The disc amply justifies the ...

Myra Melford - Mark Dresser - Matt Wilson's "Trio M": Big Picture

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 4, 2008

Maestoso. Non si può definire altrimenti questo Big Picture, disco a nome del Trio M, ovvero Myra Melford al piano, Mark Dresser al contrabbasso e Matt Wilson alla batteria. Maestoso come può essere solo un trio nel quale ciascun componente sembra esaltarsi alla presenza dell’altro ed il triangolo euclideo della strumentazione si trasforma in un solido irregolare dalle mutevoli facce sonore. Un trio nel quale i ruoli vengono di continuo sovvertiti, dove l’egemonia del piano è solo nelle convenzioni e ...

Myra Melford &Tanya Kalmanovitch: Heart Mountain

by Jerry D'Souza
July 10, 2007

Fate drew violist/violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch and pianist/harmonium player Myra Melford together at the Canadian 2003 Guelph Jazz Festival. Kalmanovitch could not play with her quartet, and therefore teamed up with Melford. Both women are improvisers who can shape their musical journeys into a compelling portrait from a common thread. Proof positive can be found on Heart Mountainof which all but one of its ninteenn tracks are improvised.

Melford and Kalmanovitch move from well-defined melodies to abstract linear forms, ...

Myra Melford & Tanya Kalmanovitch: Heart Mountain

by Budd Kopman
June 18, 2007

Pianist Myra Melford and violinist/violist Tanya Kalmanovitch have created, in Heart Mountain, a work that demonstrates the highest degree of interaction between players who have the innate ability to create spontaneous music that lives and breathes. There is absolutely no reason why jazz, specifically improvised music, cannot and should not be listened to with the same degree of concentration that is expected of classical music. The music that Melford and Kalmanovitch make is extremely taut and highly transparent, ...

Myra Melford: The Image of Your Body

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
April 4, 2007

The harmonium is not a native Indian instrument. It was conceived in Europe, but adopted by India in the 19th century, quickly becoming a traditional element in the region's folk, devotional and popular music. Myra Melford studied the instrument in India under a Fulbright Scholarship and, as she writes in the liner notes of this new album, she was “waiting to see what would emerge naturally (...) as opposed to trying to make something happen. The Image ...

Myra Melford Be Bread: The Image Of Your Body

by AAJ Italy Staff
October 24, 2006

Se ci si ferma un istante a riflettere sugli sviluppi della sua musica, appare piuttosto evidente come Myra Melford stia negli anni combinando e ricombinando i diversi elementi della propria poetica, in un dialogo interno continuo e estremamente sottile che riflette bene il suo carattere di artista generosa, ma al tempo stesso schiva e profondamente riflessiva. Succede anche con The Image of Your Body, un lavoro in cui sulla formazione base del trio composto da lei assieme al bassista Stomu ...

Myra Melford Be Bread: The Image Of Your Body

by Nic Jones
October 1, 2006

Myra Melford augments her to a quartet here with either trumpet or guitar, and the range of the group is augmented in turn by her use of harmonium and the use of electronics by both trumpeter Cuong Vu and bassist Stomu Takeishi. The resulting music is a mixed affair, marked by a certain anonymous quality that often makes its presence felt.

The programme starts promisingly enough with “Equal Grace, where the sustenance of a mood shows how well the group ...