Jazz Articles

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, ...

Tanya Kalmanovitch, Myra Melford: Heart Mountain

by Suzanne Lorge
June 7, 2007

It's getting harder and harder these days to categorize jazz musicians, as Tanya Kalmanovitch and Myra Melford remind us with their new release, Heart Mountain (Perspicacity Records). Both carry heavy credentials in other genres of music: violinist/violist Kalmanovitch holds a bachelors degree from Juilliard, and classically trained pianist Melford traveled to Calcutta on a Fulbright scholarship to study the harmonium. In their work they urge listeners to dispense with such categorization, however, and find “the spaces between musical genres, where ...

Myra Melford / Tanya Kalmanovitch: Heart Mountain

by Troy Collins
May 15, 2007

Heart Mountain is the first duo recording of pianist Myra Melford and violist/violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch. Ajay Heble, artistic director of the 2003 Guelph International Jazz Festival, suggested a duet with Melford when unforeseen circumstances prevented the scheduled performance of Kalmanovitch's quartet. So successful was their unplanned meeting that they decided to reconvene for this 2005 studio effort.

Traveling similar artistic paths, Melford and Kalmanovitch share common interests and academic backgrounds. Melford, one of today's most original pianists and ...

Tanya Kalmanovitch Hut Five: Out Where the Trains Don't Run

by AAJ Staff
May 5, 2005

How ridiculous that with the deep pool of talented jazz violinists, many best-of lists lump them into the nonspecific “Best String Player category? With Leroy Jenkins, Billy Bang, Mark Feldman, Jenny Scheinman, Carla Kihlstedt, Regina Carter, and most recently Tanya Kalmanovitch (selected as an AAJ-NY “Best New Talent of 2004) -- it would be a challenge to roll off more names of soprano saxophonists (which has long had its own “category )! The Canadian Kalmanovitch recently made the ...

Tanya Kalmanovitch Hut Five: Out Where the Trains Don't Run

by John Kelman
March 5, 2005

As relatively unusual as it is to hear the violin in a jazz context, the viola is an even more unlikely improvising instrument. And yet, classical masters like Kim Kashkashian have brought its rich texture to bear on albums including Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek's latest, In Praise of Dreams , where the viola's inherent warmth contrasted Garbarek's icy tone. Violist Tanya Kalmanovitch, who first emerged on the scene with her '02 debut, Hut Five , may have classical training, but ...