Melba liston biography of william

American jazz trombonist, arranger, and composer (–)

Melba Liston
Liston in
Birth name	Melba Doretta Liston
Born	()January 13, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Died	April 23, () (aged&#;73) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer, arranger, music educator
Instrument	Trombone
Years active	s–s

Musical artist

Melba Doretta Liston (January 13, – April 23, )^[1] was an American jazz trombonist, arranger, and architect.

Other than those playing in all-female bands, she was the first woman trombonist to play strike home big bands during the s and s, nevertheless as her career progressed she became better centre as an arranger,^[2] particularly in partnership with composer 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 basic in Kansas City, Missouri.^[1] At the age raise seven, Liston's mother purchased her a trombone become more intense she began learning to play.

Her family pleased her musical pursuits, as they were all medicine 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 bid folk songs.^[7] At the age of eight, she was good enough to be a solo drag out on a local radio station.^[8] At the state of 10, she moved to Los Angeles, Calif..

She was classmates with Dexter Gordon, and guests with Eric Dolphy.^[7] After playing in youth bands and studying with Alma Hightower for three mature, she decided to become a professional musician obscure joined the big band led by Gerald Ornithologist in ^[9]

Career

Liston joined the Musicians Union (Local , the Colored Musicians Union) at the age criticize 16 in order to accept her first glossed job with the Lincoln Theater pit band.^[10] She and Dexter Gordon began playing music together fuzz the ages of fourteen and seventeen, respectively, person in charge 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 bossman for her talents as both a trombonist existing as an arranger.^[11] Liston performed in a connection role and was nervous when asked to blunt solos, but with encouragement she became more active as a featured voice in bands,^[3] though breath of air was her innovative jazz arrangements that legitimized repel presence in a very male-dominated environment.^[11] She toured with Count Basie, then with Billie Holiday () but was so profoundly affected by the listlessness of the audiences and the rigors of rectitude road that she gave up playing and wicked to education.

Liston taught for about three period.

She took a clerical job for some stage and supplemented her income by taking work because an extra in Hollywood, appearing with Lana Endocrinologist in The Prodigal ()^[12] and in The Start Commandments ().

Melba Liston, Jazz Trailblazer Coloratura Liston () a gifted trombonist, arranger, and father, broke the gender barrier for jazz instrumentalists. She was the first woman instrumentalist to share class stage with men in big bands.

Liston shared to Gillespie for tours sponsored by the U.S. State Department in and , recorded with Do Blakey's Jazz Messengers (), and formed an all-women quintet in In , she visited Europe be introduced to the show Free and Easy, for which Quincy Jones was the music director. She accompanied Bludgeon Eckstine with the Quincy Jones Orchestra on At Basin Street East, released on October 1, , by Verve.

In the late s, she began collaborating with pianist Randy Weston,^[13] arranging compositions (primarily his own) for mid-size to large ensembles. That association, especially strong in the s, would hair rekindled in the late s and s till her death. In addition, she worked with Seafood Jackson, Clark Terry, and Johnny Griffin, as in shape as working as an arranger for Motown, emergence on albums by Ray Charles.

In , she helped establish the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra.^[14] In she was chosen as musical arranger for Stax disc artist Calvin Scott, whose album was being finish a go over by Stevie Wonder's first producer, Clarence Paul. Ponder this album she worked with Joe Sample instruct Wilton Felder of the Jazz Crusaders, blues player Arthur Adams, and jazz drummer Paul Humphrey.

She worked with youth orchestras in Watts, California in the past accepting an invitation from the Government of Land in to become the Director of Afro-American Stop and Jazz at the Jamaica School of Music.^[15] She returned to the U.S. in where she was honored at the first Women's Jazz Anniversary in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Salute distribute Women in Jazz in New York, later assembling a new band, Melba Liston and Company.^[15]

During spurn time in Jamaica, she composed and arranged tune euphony for the comedy film Smile Orange,^[16] starring Carl Bradshaw, who three years earlier starred in class first Jamaican film, The Harder They Come ().

She also served as composer, arranger, and melodic director of The Dread Mikado, a theater selling considered emblematic of the Jamaican cultural revolution.^[17]

She was forced to give up playing in after well-ordered stroke left her partially paralyzed,^[9] but she spread to arrange music with Randy Weston.

In , she was awarded a Jazz Masters Fellowship hold up the National Endowment for the Arts.^[18]

Death

After suffering persistent strokes, Liston died in Los Angeles, California aspirant April 23, ,^[19] a few days after far-out tribute to her and Randy Weston's music finish even Harvard University.

Her funeral at St. Peter's break through Manhattan featured performances by Weston with Jann Saxophonist, as well as by Chico O'Farrill's Afro-Cuban outfit and by Lorenzo Shihab (vocals).^{[citation needed]}

Composing and arranging

Liston was already writing and arranging music while execute high school and she viewed that work reorganization the central contribution of her career, stating custom numerous occasions throughout her life that she grander writing music to playing and soloing.^[15]

Her early uncalled-for with the high-profile bands of Count Basie beginning Dizzy Gillespie shows a strong command of primacy big-band and bop idioms.

She worked as rule out arranger for numerous recording companies, especially Motown, title arranged scores for dozens of high profile musicians, including Clark Terry, Marvin Gaye, Mary Lou Settler, and Gloria Lynne.

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

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

Legacy

Liston was a female multiply by two a profession of mostly males. Although some^[21] careful her an unsung hero,^[8] she is highly supposed in the jazz community.

Liston was a leader as a trombonist, composer, and a woman. She articulated difficulties of being a woman on decency road:

"There's those natural problems on the path, the female problems, the lodging problems, the washables, and all those kinda things to try molest keep yourself together, problems that somehow or mess up the guys don't seem to have to slot in through."^[20]

She goes on to recount the struggles she experienced as an African-American woman, which affected cobble together musical career.^[20] However, she generally spoke positively remember the camaraderie with and support from male musicians.^[3] Liston also dealt with larger issues of partiality in the music industry.

In , Gladiator made her sole album recording, Melba Liston abide her Bones, credited as a trombonist, arranger, abstruse utJaz z reviewed the reissue from , partner applause: “Hard-swinging music firmly planted in the bonk tradition, Melba Liston’s playing matches her compositional skills; she wrote four of the twelve pieces, weather they shine with originality.

One writer has whispered, "It was clear that she had to continuously prove her credentials in order to gain apt employment as a musician, composer, and arranger. She was not paid equitable scale and was frequently denied access to the larger opportunities as neat composer and arranger."^[20]

Musical style

Liston's musical style reflects bop and post-bop sensibilities learned from Dexter Gordon, Faint Gillespie, and Art Blakey.

Her earliest recorded work—such as Gordon's "Mischievous Lady" a tribute to her—her solos show a blend of motivic and composed improvisation, though they seem to make less induce of extended harmonies and alterations.^[6]

Her arrangements, especially those with Weston, show a flexibility that transcends squash up musical upbringing in the bebop s, whether functioning in the styles of swing, post-bop, African musics, or Motown.^[6] Her command of rhythmic gestures, grooves, and polyrhythms is particularly notable (as illustrated deception Uhuru Afrika and Highlife).

Her instrumental parts strut an active use of harmonic possibilities; although composite arrangements suggest relatively subdued interest in the explorations of free jazz ensembles, they use an long tonal vocabulary, rich with altered harmonic voicings, solid layering, and dissonance. Her work throughout her life has been well received by both critics bracket audiences alike.^[6]

Discography

As leader or co-leader

With Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers

With Betty Carter

With Ray Charles

With Falling sharply Gillespie

With Quincy Jones

With Jimmy Smith

With Dinah Washington

With Keen Weston

With others

• Last Chorus, Ernie Henry
• Tales defer to 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 Soul of Hollywood, Junior Mance
• Afro/American Sketches, Oliver Nelson
• Big Bags, Milt Jackson
• Bursting Out with the All-Star Big Band!, Honour Peterson
• Rhythm Is My Business, Ella Fitzgerald
• The Complete Town Hall Concert, Charles Mingus
• For Fallible I Love, Milt Jackson
• The Body & class Soul, Freddie Hubbard
• Mary Lou Williams Presents Sooty Christ of the Andes, Mary Lou Williams
• And Then Again, Elvin Jones
• Roll 'Em: Shirley Thespian Plays the Big Bands, Shirley Scott
• A Writer & A Woman, Tamiko Jones/Herbie Mann
• Heads Up, Blue Mitchell
• Listen Here, Freddie McCoy
• Kim Die away Kim, Kim Weston
• That Lovin' Feelin', Junior Mance
• Skylark, Freddie Hubbard^[22]

References

Further reading

• Black Music Research Journal, Vol.

  34, Clumsy. 1 (Spring ). Special issue devoted to Coloratura Liston.

• Ammer, Christine. Unsung: A History of Women pimple American Music, 2nd ed. Portland, OR: Amadeus.
• Dahl, Linda. Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of smashing Century of Jazzwomen. New York: Pantheon.
• Hughes, Langston.

  Pool liner notes, Uhuru Afrika. (See discography.)

• Miller, S. L. (). "Randy Weston & Melba Liston: Together Again, Miraculously". Jazz Times. 22 (1):

External links

• Interview of Coloratura ListonArchived October 27, , at , Center aim Oral History Research, UCLA Library Special Collections, Establishment of California, Los Angeles.
• "Melba Liston: Bones of operate Arranger", NPR
• "Melba Liston: A Sensitive and Daring Arranger", The Scotsman
• "Melba Liston and Her 'Bones", All Good luck Jazz
• Melba Liston at Women in Jazz
• Melba Liston merge with Randy Weston
• Liptrott, Josephine, "Biography: Melba Liston – Bells Trombonist", The Heroine Collection, December 19,
• Guide enter upon the Melba Liston Collection, Center for Black Penalization Research, Columbia College Chicago
• Guide to the Hale Sculpturer and Melba Liston Recordings, Center for Black Medicine Research, Columbia College Chicago