Myra Melford

Although Big Picture is the first release from Trio M, the collective piano trio featuring Myra Melford, Mark Dresser and Matt Wilson, it evinces a mature musical discourse and rapport that one would expect to find in groups with a longer history. This shouldn't come as a surprise given the talents and histories of its individual participants; indeed, three mid-career (in the jazz world anyway) musicians with sensitive improvisational talents such as Ms. Melford, Mr. Dresser and Mr. Wilson should be held to high standards of musical output. The music contained in Big Picture covers a lot of ground - it's at true collective in the sense that all three receive writing credits on the album, but the reason the album works musically is that there is a cohesive quality to their playing and interaction that binds the diverse compositions together into a coherent whole.

The egalitarian piano trio is nothing new to improvised music, but in any individual instance it's interesting to hear how issues of time, rhythm and harmony are handled by the participants. In this case there seems to be a very fluid sense of roles amongst the three musicians, with each of them fulfilling more traditional capacities at times and then quickly changing places.

Compositionally, I find Mark Dresser's tunes the most interesting, which is interesting because he's the musician I'm the least familiar with on this record. I have a few of Myra Melford's records as a leader, and I don't think you can swing a stick in a jazz record store and not hit a recording with Matt Wilson on it. I hadn't heard anything of Mark Dresser's as a leader, and I'd only heard his playing with Anthony Braxton - this record is enough to pique my interest in seeking out some of his own records (if anyone has a suggestion, please let me know in the comments).  Amongst the other tracks, Myra Melford's "Secrets to Tell You" is perhaps the most stunning.

I was interested to read three reviews of this band live from their recent tour (what a wealth of documentation blogging gives us!) - their impressions reflect the sense I get from the recording, which is three musicians who found a collective aesthetic that works for them. Pat noted that he expected a bigger sound given some of the participants, but the dynamic range seems to work for them in this setting. This shouldn't be confused for compromise - rather, I hear three musicians committed to a collectivity that works. I wish I could have seen the tour in person, but on national jazz tours Chicago is a tough stop to make geographically - more often than not we get a wave from an airplane as the musicians fly from coast to coast overhead.

If you have any misgivings about this trio due to any taste about the individual players contained within, put them aside. This music works, and if we accept as a basic premise of improvisation the goal of communication, then Big Picture is nothing short of a resounding success.

As we continue our sojourn through the '90s....

1 8 Bold Souls, Sideshow (Arabesque, 1992)
2 William Parker/In Order To Survive, The Peach Orchard (Aum Fidelity, 1998)
3 Greg Osby, Banned in New York (Blue Note, 1998)
4 Myra Melford Extended Ensemble, Even the Sounds Shine (hatHUT, 1995)
5 Douglas Ewart and Inventions Clarinet Choir, Angles of Entrance (Aarawak, 1990/1998)
6 Anderson/Crispell/Drake, Destiny (OkkaDisk, 1994)
7 Jon Jang, Two Flowers on a Stem (Soul Note, 1995)
8 Horace Tapscott, Thoughts of Dar Es Salaam (Arabesque, 1997)
9 Charles Gayle, Touchin’ on Trane (FMP, 1993)
10 Anderson/Kowald/Drake, Live at the Velvet Lounge (OkkaDisk, 1999)

Jon Jang, Two Flowers on a Stem (Soul Note, 1995)

Jon Jang (Jang Jian Liang), piano
James Newton, flute
David Murray, tenor sax, bass clarinet
Chen Jiebing, erhu
Santi Debriano, bass and daluo
Jabali Billy Hart, drums

I've been a fan of Jon Jang since I was introduced to his music by Tatsu Aoki, both of them integral members of the national Asian American improv scene. This recording finds Jang leading a fantastic sextet of musicians, and he takes them through an eclectic program of music. 

The album opens with the decidedly asian influenced and meditative Two Flowers on a Stem, which in my listening experience acts as almost an extended introduction leading into a take on Charles Mingus' Meditations on Integration. The band gives this Mingus standard an 18 minute workout, but it's one of those extended cuts that always ends too soon. One important aspect of the instrumentation on this album is the erhu, a two stringed bowed instrument of Chinese origin. It creates an otherworldly sound that has an incredibly vocal quality to it, and to my ears its timbre adds an element of lament to the proceedings.

This disc puts into focus what I perceive as Jang's goal in his musical career: explore his cultural heritage while utilizing the techniques and musical language of jazz. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Jang and Francis Wong when they were in Chicago a while back - I think I still have the audio from that somewhere, I'll have to take a look and post it if I do. Jon Jang is the type of improviser who seems to have an allergic reaction to the word jazz. He sees how he is participating in the continuum of improvisatory music that includes what is conventionally referred to as jazz, but he doesn't have any use for the genre since he oftentimes operates along its border territories as it is.

This was one of two discs, the other one being Dougas Ewart's Angles of Entrance, that I thought might not show up on any other lists in the D:O poll. I was pleased to see Vijay Iyer included this disc in his picks, and I could see how Jang might have offered an interesting paradigm for Vijay in his own pianistic explorations of asian cultural heritage and modern improvisation.

Myra Melford Extended Ensemble, Even the Sounds Shine (hatHUT, 1995)

Myra Melford, piano
Dave Douglas, trumpet
Marty Ehrlich, alto sax, clarinet
Lindsey Horner, bass
Reggie Nicholson, drums

This quintet recording from Myra Melford was actually my introduction to her music. I find this disc to present an absolutely mesmerizing program that has the balance of composition and improvisation that I find myself gravitating to in the recorded format. It's interesting, because in a live context, I tend to go to performances that tend to be heavy on the improvisatory end, but when I listen to recordings I find the structure of composition useful in framing the listening experience.

The highlight of this disc for me is the 25 minute La Mezquita Suite. That's not to diminish the other great music on the recording, but when I put this disc on I've found myself getting to the end of La Mezquita Suite and skipping back to hear it again. It's just a sublime, beautiful piece of music with great playing by the ensemble and all the individuals within.

It's interesting to note that this is the only recording on my list featuring the prolific Dave Douglas, who appeared on so many other lists in the poll. He's definitely a blind spot in my listening and record collection, and his playing in this disc definitely piques my curiosity to delve into his own catalog. Maybe I'll take a cue from the '90s list and pick up a couple of discs.

Myra Melford is a fascinating pianist. Her playing as an accompanist is as an active participant rather than a background wallflower, and I find her soloing to be inventive and playful. I'm looking forward to seeing her this summer as part of Nicole Mitchell's tribute to Alice Coltrane in Millennium Park.

More on the '90s soon....