Myra Melford

Pianist Myra Melford has built an impressive career as an exploratory, virtuosic, rhythmic, and lyrical composer and improviser. She emerged in 1990 with her trio debut Jump, which reflected her primary musical mentors/influences: pianist Don Pullen, whose percussive mannerisms she successively adapted, and composer Henry Threadgill, with whom she studied in the mid-'80s. By the time the trio released 1996's The Same River, Twice, she had become an internationally acclaimed jazz pianist. The accolades afforded her wide-ranging body of work -- often carrying a strong spiritual ...