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Myra Melford Quintet: The Same River, TwiceSaturday, November 4 • 2pmFlorence Gould Theatre, Legion of Honor
"Myra Melford is at once a dancer, a romantic and a savage suckerpuncher at the bench...beating all hell out of the piano and making it beautiful." — Coda Chicago native Myra Melford cuts quite a worldly figure: influenced by her hometown’s boogie-woogie tradition, she is also equally well versed in Sufi poets, yoga, African percussion, and Hindustani music. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study with harmonium master Sohanlal Sharma in Calcutta, India, an experience she credits with expanding her personal horizons, as well as those of her music. “I got to see what it is that we all share in common despite our cultural differences, and was also able to enjoy sharing those cultural differences,” she told All About Jazz. “It was really an incredible and expansive experience.”
For all the variety of her interests, Melford’s compositions are remarkably cohesive, befitting a former acolyte of fellow Chicagoan avant-gardist Henry Threadgill. Incorporating her wide range of influences without ever pandering to them as window dressing, Melford attributes such consistency to the way she processes her sundry musical, literary, and cultural interests. “There’s a gesticulation period, or a maturation period—I’m not trying to imitate what I studied. The music that I’m writing now is at an even deeper level of saturation. My goal is not to make it sound Indian but to use that experience and see how it evolves.”
Melford now shares her musical curiosity as a professor of improvisation at the University of California, Berkeley. She also continues work on a series of compositions based on Rumi’s poetry. The quintet featured on her recent album The Image of Your Body includes some of the same accomplished sidemen performing tonight, including trumpeter Cuong Vu and thrilling electric bassist Stomu Takeishi.
Myra Melford’s composition “The Whole Place Goes Up” was created with support from Chamber Music America’s New Works: Creation and Presentation Program, funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
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