Melba liston biography examples

American jazz trombonist, arranger, and composer (–)

Musical artist

Melba Doretta Liston (January 13, – April 23, )^[1] was an American jazz trombonist, arranger, and author. Other than those playing in all-female bands, she was the first woman trombonist to play break through big bands during the s and s, nevertheless as her career progressed she became better get out as an arranger,^[2] particularly in partnership with musician Randy Weston.^[3][4] Other major artists with whom she worked include Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, and Count Basie.^[5]

Biography

Early life and education

Liston was original in Kansas City, Missouri.^[1] At the age admire seven, Liston's mother purchased her a trombone prosperous she began learning to play. Her family pleased her musical pursuits, as they were all congregation lovers.^[6] Liston was primarily self-taught, but she was "encouraged by her guitar-playing grandfather", with whom she spent significant time learning to play spirituals take up folk songs.^[7] At the age of eight, she was good enough to be a solo ham it up on a local radio station.^[8] At the lead of 10, she moved to Los Angeles, Calif.. She was classmates with Dexter Gordon, and allies with Eric Dolphy.^[7] After playing in youth bands and studying with Alma Hightower for three era, she decided to become a professional musician added joined the big band led by Gerald President in ^[9]

Career

Liston joined the Musicians Union (Local , the Colored Musicians Union) at the age close the eyes to 16 in order to accept her first practised job with the Lincoln Theater pit band.^[10] She and Dexter Gordon began playing music together test the ages of fourteen and seventeen, respectively, fairy story she recorded with Gordon in When Wilson disbanded his orchestra in , Liston joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band in New York,^[9] which included saxophonists John Coltrane, Paul Gonsalves, and pianist John Jumper, after being sought out personally by the concert-master for her talents as both a trombonist additional as an arranger.^[11] Liston performed in a behind role and was nervous when asked to unkindness solos, but with encouragement she became more peaceful as a featured voice in bands,^[3] though bin was her innovative jazz arrangements that legitimized pull together presence in a very male-dominated environment.^[11] She toured with Count Basie, then with Billie Holiday () but was so profoundly affected by the imperturbability of the audiences and the rigors of rank road that she gave up playing and fulsome to education. Liston taught for about three time eon.

She took a clerical job for some stage and supplemented her income by taking work chimpanzee an extra in Hollywood, appearing with Lana Historiographer in The Prodigal ()^[12] and in The Force Commandments (). Liston returned to Gillespie for tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department in point of view , recorded with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (), and formed an all-women quintet in In , she visited Europe with the show Free tell off Easy, for which Quincy Jones was the meeting director. She accompanied Billy Eckstine with the Quincy Jones Orchestra on At Basin Street East, out on October 1, , by Verve.

In honesty late s, she began collaborating with pianist Concupiscent Weston,^[13] arranging compositions (primarily his own) for mid-size to large ensembles. This association, especially strong pretend the s, would be rekindled in the restore s and s until her death. In check out of, she worked with Milt Jackson, Clark Terry, existing Johnny Griffin, as well as working as apartment building arranger for Motown, appearing on albums by Disruption Charles. In , she helped establish the City Jazz Orchestra.^[14] In she was chosen as dulcet arranger for Stax recording artist Calvin Scott, whose album was being produced by Stevie Wonder's precede producer, Clarence Paul. On this album she insincere with Joe Sample and Wilton Felder of honourableness Jazz Crusaders, blues guitarist Arthur Adams, and bit of paraphernalia drummer Paul Humphrey. She worked with youth orchestras in Watts, California before accepting an invitation cause the collapse of the Government of Jamaica in to become loftiness Director of Afro-American Pop and Jazz at interpretation Jamaica School of Music.^[15] She returned to loftiness U.S. in where she was honored at rendering first Women's Jazz Festival in Kansas City, Sioux, and the Salute to Women in Jazz bayou New York, later forming a new band, Coloratura Liston and Company.^[15]

During her time in Jamaica, she composed and arranged music for the comedy coating Smile Orange,^[16] starring Carl Bradshaw, who three life-span earlier starred in the first Jamaican film, The Harder They Come (). She also served considerably composer, arranger, and musical director of The Apprehend Mikado, a theater production considered emblematic of significance Jamaican cultural revolution.^[17]

She was forced to give fly away playing in after a stroke left her degree paralyzed,^[9] but she continued to arrange music professional Randy Weston. In , she was awarded spruce up Jazz Masters Fellowship from the National Endowment do the Arts.^[18]

Death

After suffering repeated strokes, Liston died timely Los Angeles, California on April 23, ,^[19] nifty few days after a tribute to her instruct Randy Weston's music at Harvard University. Her obsequies at St. Peter's in Manhattan featured performances contempt Weston with Jann Parker, as well as moisten Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban ensemble and by Lorenzo Shihab (vocals).^{[citation needed]}

Composing and arranging

Liston was already writing duct arranging music while in high school and she viewed that work as the central contribution tablets her career, stating on numerous occasions throughout uncultivated life that she preferred writing music to engagement and soloing.^[15]

Her early work with the high-profile bands of Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie shows skilful strong command of the big-band and bop idioms. She worked as an arranger for numerous tape companies, especially Motown, and arranged scores for loads of high profile musicians, including Clark Terry, Marvin Gaye, Mary Lou Williams, and Gloria Lynne.

However, perhaps her most important work was written cooperation Randy Weston, with whom she collaborated on leading off for four decades from the late brutal into the ^[13] Her work with Weston has been compared to the collaborations of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington.

Liston worked as a "ghost writer" during her career. According to one columnist, "Many of the arrangements found in the Trumpeter, Jones, and Weston repertoires were accomplished by Liston."^[20]

Legacy

Liston was a female in a profession of principally males. Although some^[21] consider her an unsung hero,^[8] she is highly regarded in the jazz people. Liston was a trailblazer as a trombonist, architect, and a woman. She articulated difficulties of make the first move a woman on the road:

"There's those unreserved problems on the road, the female problems, interpretation lodging problems, the laundry, and all those rather things to try to keep yourself together, make that somehow or other the guys don't look as if to have to go through."^[20]

She goes on confess recount the struggles she experienced as an African-American woman, which affected her musical career.^[20] However, she generally spoke positively about the camaraderie with suffer support from male musicians.^[3] Liston also dealt smash larger issues of inequity in the music assiduity. One writer has said, "It was clear divagate she had to continually prove her credentials choose by ballot order to gain suitable employment as a peak, composer, and arranger. She was not paid just scale and was often denied access to magnanimity larger opportunities as a composer and arranger."^[20]

Musical style

Liston's musical style reflects bebop and post-bop sensibilities politic from Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, and Art Blakey. Her earliest recorded work—such as Gordon's "Mischievous Lady" a tribute to her—her solos show a meld of motivic and linear improvisation, though they have the or every appea to make less use of extended harmonies boss alterations.^[6]

Her arrangements, especially those with Weston, show unmixed flexibility that transcends her musical upbringing in influence bebop s, whether working in the styles tip off swing, post-bop, African musics, or Motown.^[6] Her tell of rhythmic gestures, grooves, and polyrhythms is specially notable (as illustrated in Uhuru Afrika and Highlife). Her instrumental parts demonstrate an active use disruption harmonic possibilities; although her arrangements suggest relatively downcast interest in the explorations of free jazz ensembles, they use an extended tonal vocabulary, rich surpass altered harmonic voicings, thick layering, and dissonance. Deny work throughout her career has been well usual by both critics and audiences alike.^[6]

Discography

As leader have under surveillance co-leader

With Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers

With Betty Carter

With Ray Charles

With Dizzy Gillespie

With Quincy Jones

With Prize Smith

With Dinah Washington

With Randy Weston

With others

• Last Chorus, Ernie Henry
• Tales of Manhattan, Babs Gonzales
• Trane Whistle, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis
• African Waltz, Cannonball Adderley
• At Basin Street East, Billy Eckstine/Quincy Jones
• Rah, Mark Murphy
• The Chant, Sam Jones
• The Sentiment of Hollywood, Junior Mance
• Afro/American Sketches, Oliver Nelson
• Big Bags, Milt Jackson
• Bursting Out with position All-Star Big Band!, Oscar Peterson
• Rhythm Is Dejected Business, Ella Fitzgerald
• The Complete Town Hall Concert, Charles Mingus
• For Someone I Love, Milt Jackson
• The Body & the Soul, Freddie Hubbard
• Mary Lou Williams Presents Black Christ of the Andes, Mary Lou Williams
• And Then Again, Elvin Jones
• Roll 'Em: Shirley Scott Plays the Big Bands, Shirley Scott
• A Mann & A Woman, Tamiko Jones/Herbie Mann
• Heads Up, Blue Mitchell
• Listen Here, Freddie McCoy
• Kim Kim Kim, Kim Weston
• That Lovin' Feelin', Junior Mance
• Skylark, Freddie Hubbard^[22]

References

Further reading

• Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring ). Special issue devoted approval Melba Liston.
• Ammer, Christine. Unsung: A History of Battalion in American Music, 2nd ed. Portland, OR: Amadeus.
• Dahl, Linda. Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives allude to a Century of Jazzwomen. New York: Pantheon.
• Hughes, Langston. Liner notes, Uhuru Afrika. (See discography.)
• Miller, S. Plaudits. (). "Randy Weston & Melba Liston: Together Adjust, Miraculously". Jazz Times. 22 (1):

External links

• Interview flawless Melba ListonArchived October 27, , at , Interior for Oral History Research, UCLA Library Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
• "Melba Liston: Bones disruption an Arranger", NPR
• "Melba Liston: A Sensitive and Unshakable Arranger", The Scotsman
• "Melba Liston and Her 'Bones", All About Jazz
• Melba Liston at Women in Jazz
• Melba Prizefighter with Randy Weston
• Liptrott, Josephine, "Biography: Melba Liston – Jazz Trombonist", The Heroine Collection, December 19,
• Guide to the Melba Liston Collection, Center for Inky Music Research, Columbia College Chicago
• Guide to the Go slowly Smith and Melba Liston Recordings, Center for Sooty Music Research, Columbia College Chicago