Biography
Myra Melford, a pianist, reached New York City during a promising period, ready to integrate with leading figures in the downtown jazz community amid the growth of a collaborative musician network that broadened avenues for innovative output. Born in Evanston, Illinois, north of Chicago, she developed her passion for jazz while completing undergraduate work at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. After additional training at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, she relocated to New York in 1984, where she continued her studies with Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill and started performing alongside Threadgill, Leroy Jenkins, and Butch Morris.
She absorbed lessons from these mentors yet quickly forged an individual approach that fused rhythmic force and momentum, lyrical melodies, inventive harmonies, and improvisational skill, all informed by her profound regard for the blues. Toward the end of the 1980s she raised her visibility as a solo performer through appearances at the original Knitting Factory space. One of her earliest documented performances appears on the 1989 anthology Live at the Knitting Factory, Vol. 2, where the aptly named solo piano work “Some Kind of Blues” was captured, although she had already self-released a solo piano cassette titled One for Now in 1986.
Her debut project as a bandleader took shape in 1990 with the Myra Melford Trio, which paired the pianist with bassist Lindsey Horner and drummer Reggie Nicholson, both already active participants in New York’s creative jazz circles. Horner, a Juilliard-trained native New Yorker, had worked with Herb Robertson and Bobby Previte, while Nicholson, originally from Chicago and an AACM member, moved to New York in 1988 and, like Melford, entered the circle of Morris, Pullen, and other forward-thinking musicians of the era. During the 1980s Nicholson had served in Amina Claudine Myers ensembles and had performed and recorded with Threadgill, including on the saxophonist’s 1987 Sextett album You Know the Number.
Beyond operating its Houston Street club, the Knitting Factory also managed touring and dispatched the Myra Melford Trio on a European tour in spring 1990. Upon returning to New York the trio cut its first album, Jump, at the Magic Shop in June; Enemy, the label associated with Last Exit, issued the recording later that year. Two years afterward Enemy released the group’s second album, Now & Now, which the musicians had tracked during summer 1991 at Baby Monster Studio in Chelsea.
These recordings earned well-deserved recognition within creative and avant-garde jazz circles, yet live performances revealed that the Myra Melford Trio reached its fullest expression onstage. That quality is documented on Alive in the House of Saints, issued by Hat Hut in 1993 and captured across two German venues during another European tour in February of that year. The album introduced fresh compositions while revisiting material from Jump, and the extended live treatments highlighted Melford, Horner, and Nicholson at a new peak of dynamic interplay. Many listeners regard Alive in the House of Saints as the trio’s definitive statement; Hatology reissued it in an expanded two-disc edition in 2001, offering further proof of the ensemble at its strongest.
Having completed two studio albums and one live recording with the trio, Melford sought to broaden the sonic resources at her disposal as a leader, composer, and improviser while retaining the rapport built over years with Horner and Nicholson. She therefore formed the Myra Melford Extended Ensemble, retaining the original trio as its core and augmenting it to a quintet with trumpeter Dave Douglas and reedman Marty Ehrlich. Touring Europe with this expanded lineup in spring 1994, she recorded the live album Even the Sounds Shine at the Börse in Wuppertal, Germany, for Hat Hut. In the liner notes she observed, “By adding horns to the group, I was looking to expand the sonic and structural possibilities while still exploring the uses of improvisation to develop written material.”
Where the original trio had placed her unmistakable imprint on the piano/bass/drums configuration, the Extended Ensemble demonstrated her capacity to project that individuality across a wider instrumental range, even within a conventional jazz quintet format. Her subsequent project, The Same River, Twice, debuted with a self-titled album on Gramavision in 1996 and further enlarged the instrumental palette by abandoning the standard “piano trio with horns” model. The bass-less five-piece lineup featured Melford on piano alongside trumpeter Douglas, cellist Erik Friedlander, reedman Chris Speed, and drummer Michael Sarin, all established downtown figures; Friedlander, Speed, and Sarin were in fact members of Douglas-led groups at the time.
The Myra Melford Trio continued to tour and impress listeners into 1997, yet the ensemble of Melford, Horner, and Nicholson produced no further recordings. Melford, continually pursuing fresh instrumental combinations, would not return to the piano/bass/drums format on record until Big Picture, the 2007 Cryptogramophone debut of Trio M, a cooperative trio uniting the pianist with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson.
She absorbed lessons from these mentors yet quickly forged an individual approach that fused rhythmic force and momentum, lyrical melodies, inventive harmonies, and improvisational skill, all informed by her profound regard for the blues. Toward the end of the 1980s she raised her visibility as a solo performer through appearances at the original Knitting Factory space. One of her earliest documented performances appears on the 1989 anthology Live at the Knitting Factory, Vol. 2, where the aptly named solo piano work “Some Kind of Blues” was captured, although she had already self-released a solo piano cassette titled One for Now in 1986.
Her debut project as a bandleader took shape in 1990 with the Myra Melford Trio, which paired the pianist with bassist Lindsey Horner and drummer Reggie Nicholson, both already active participants in New York’s creative jazz circles. Horner, a Juilliard-trained native New Yorker, had worked with Herb Robertson and Bobby Previte, while Nicholson, originally from Chicago and an AACM member, moved to New York in 1988 and, like Melford, entered the circle of Morris, Pullen, and other forward-thinking musicians of the era. During the 1980s Nicholson had served in Amina Claudine Myers ensembles and had performed and recorded with Threadgill, including on the saxophonist’s 1987 Sextett album You Know the Number.
Beyond operating its Houston Street club, the Knitting Factory also managed touring and dispatched the Myra Melford Trio on a European tour in spring 1990. Upon returning to New York the trio cut its first album, Jump, at the Magic Shop in June; Enemy, the label associated with Last Exit, issued the recording later that year. Two years afterward Enemy released the group’s second album, Now & Now, which the musicians had tracked during summer 1991 at Baby Monster Studio in Chelsea.
These recordings earned well-deserved recognition within creative and avant-garde jazz circles, yet live performances revealed that the Myra Melford Trio reached its fullest expression onstage. That quality is documented on Alive in the House of Saints, issued by Hat Hut in 1993 and captured across two German venues during another European tour in February of that year. The album introduced fresh compositions while revisiting material from Jump, and the extended live treatments highlighted Melford, Horner, and Nicholson at a new peak of dynamic interplay. Many listeners regard Alive in the House of Saints as the trio’s definitive statement; Hatology reissued it in an expanded two-disc edition in 2001, offering further proof of the ensemble at its strongest.
Having completed two studio albums and one live recording with the trio, Melford sought to broaden the sonic resources at her disposal as a leader, composer, and improviser while retaining the rapport built over years with Horner and Nicholson. She therefore formed the Myra Melford Extended Ensemble, retaining the original trio as its core and augmenting it to a quintet with trumpeter Dave Douglas and reedman Marty Ehrlich. Touring Europe with this expanded lineup in spring 1994, she recorded the live album Even the Sounds Shine at the Börse in Wuppertal, Germany, for Hat Hut. In the liner notes she observed, “By adding horns to the group, I was looking to expand the sonic and structural possibilities while still exploring the uses of improvisation to develop written material.”
Where the original trio had placed her unmistakable imprint on the piano/bass/drums configuration, the Extended Ensemble demonstrated her capacity to project that individuality across a wider instrumental range, even within a conventional jazz quintet format. Her subsequent project, The Same River, Twice, debuted with a self-titled album on Gramavision in 1996 and further enlarged the instrumental palette by abandoning the standard “piano trio with horns” model. The bass-less five-piece lineup featured Melford on piano alongside trumpeter Douglas, cellist Erik Friedlander, reedman Chris Speed, and drummer Michael Sarin, all established downtown figures; Friedlander, Speed, and Sarin were in fact members of Douglas-led groups at the time.
The Myra Melford Trio continued to tour and impress listeners into 1997, yet the ensemble of Melford, Horner, and Nicholson produced no further recordings. Melford, continually pursuing fresh instrumental combinations, would not return to the piano/bass/drums format on record until Big Picture, the 2007 Cryptogramophone debut of Trio M, a cooperative trio uniting the pianist with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson.
Albums
Alive in the House of Saints, Part 2
2018
Alive in the House of Saints, Part 1
2017
Alive in the House of Saints
1993
Live